WORLD Magazine Nov. 16, 2013 Vol. 28 No. 23

Disney’s Frozen heats up holiday movie season

N ov em b er 1 6, 20 13

Probing internatÄąonal adoption The upsides, downsides, and blindsides

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10/28/13 10:07 AM

Contents  ,  /  ,  

     

34 Adoption under fire

During November, National Adoption Month, watch for noisy attacks on international adoption.

Not getting as much attention: hundreds of thousands of dead orphans      

42 Outside the camps Syrians fleeing war in their own country find strife in surrounding nations, too

46 Legal entanglements

A land dispute embroils an international school that serves hundreds of missionary families in one of the most populous parts of the world

50 Salt over sugar

 

The digital revolution is helping to create a new age of Christian music

5 News 16 Quotables 18 Quick Takes

54 Finding freedom

 

Christians in Nepal hope to secure new rights in upcoming elections

  :        , ,      ’    ;    /

23 Movies & TV 26 Books 28 Q&A 30 Music

23



61 Lifestyle 64 Technology 66 Science 67 Houses of God 68 Sports 69 Money 70 Religion

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42

61

VISIT WNG.ORG FOR BREAKING NEWS, TO SIGN UP FOR WEEKLY EMAIL UPDATES, AND MORE

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

3 Joel Belz 20 Janie B. Cheaney 32 Mindy Belz 56 Sophia Lee 75 Mailbag 79 Andrée Seu Peterson 80 Marvin Olasky WORLD (ISSN -X) (USPS -) is published biweekly ( issues) for . per year by God’s World Publications, (no mail)  All Souls Crescent, Asheville, NC ; () -. Periodical postage paid at Asheville, NC, and additional mailing offices. Printed in the USA. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. ©  WORLD News Group. All rights reserved. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to WORLD, PO Box , Asheville, NC -.

10/29/13 4:29 PM

Invest Wisely.

“The earth is the L’s and the fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein.” —Psalm :     Marvin Olasky  Mindy Belz   Timothy Lamer   Jamie Dean   Janie B. Cheaney, Susan Olasky, Andrée Seu Peterson, John Piper, Edward E. Plowman, Cal Thomas, Lynn Vincent

Send Him.    David K. Freeland    Robert L. Patete   Rachel Beatty  Krieg Barrie    Arla J. Eicher 

of native missionaries in    Dawn Wilson  Emily Belz, J.C. Derrick, Thousands poorer countries effectively take the to unreached people groups Daniel James Devine, Sophia Lee, gospel  in areas that are extremely difficult Angela Lu, Edward Lee Pitts for American Al Saiz, Angela Scalli, Alan Wood missionaries to reach.

4 They speak the local languages    Connie Moses  Zachary Abate, 4 They are part of the culture Megan Basham, Anthony Bradley, Tim Challies, 4 They never need a visa, airline .. tickets, or furloughs Alicia M. Cohn, John Dawson, Amy Henry, 4 They win souls and plant Mary Jackson, Thomas S. Kidd, Michael Leaser,   churches Jill Nelson, Arsenio Orteza, Tiffany Owens, Native missionaries serve the Lord at  Jim Chisolm fraction of what it costs to send an Stephanie Perrault, Emily Whitten aAmerican missionary overseas.  ..   Les Sillars Help provide for a missionary

  June McGraw

with $50 per month.

  Kristin Chapman, Mary Ruth Murdoch Christian Aid Mission P. O. Box 9037 Charlottesville, VA 22906 434-977-5650



www.christianaid.org

  

   Kevin Martin

 worldji.com

 Joel Belz

 Marvin Olasky

  Warren Cole Smith   Steve Whigham   Debra Meissner    wng.org   Mickey McLean   Leigh Jones   Dan Perkins   Whitney Williams    worldandeverything.com   Nickolas S. Eicher   Joseph Slife     worldoncampus.com  Leigh Jones

’    gwnews.com  Howard Brinkman    David Strassner (chairman), Mariam Bell, Kevin Cusack, Richard Kurtz, Virginia Kurtz, Peter Lillback, Howard Miller, William Newton, Russell B. Pulliam, David Skeel, Nelson Somerville, Ladeine Thompson, Raymon Thompson, John Weiss, John White   To report, interpret, and illustrate the news in a timely, accurate, enjoyable, and arresting fashion from a perspective committed to the Bible as the inerrant Word of God.

Contact us: .. / wng.org  , ,  ,   ,   , .

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10/28/13 10:23 AM

KRIEG BARRIE

 memberservices@wng.org  wng.org  .. within the United States or .. outside the United States

Joel Belz

No phony foes WORLD and you can operate with a balanced, two-sided worldview

>>

KRIEG BARRIE

“T     ,” a very wise man once told me, “you need to have a good enemy.” His own magazine enterprise was failing just then, and my friend told me he felt like the March of Dimes after polio seemed licked. “Neither they nor I,” he said a bit sadly, “have found the enemy we need to rally the troops.”

I understood what he meant, but I winced a little.

If you have to manufacture a new enemy every time things begin to go wrong, somebody’s going to catch on soon. A phony foe is no more helpful than a phony friend.

But who, in these dark and dire days, needs phony foes? Aren’t there enough of the genuine variety to go around? Readers know that we at WORLD aren’t overstating things when we report how bad the news is.

So here’s the point. The goal of my column this week is to persuade you (and many of your fellow readers) to say to yourself: “You already know, self, that WORLD’s journalistic mission is important. You know that WORLD has already expanded its mission far beyond the pages of a magazine, thanks to you, self, and a whole lot of people like you. You’ve heard about WORLD’s new daily audio newscasts and its weekly radio program that’s airing on nearly  radio stations. You know how World Journalism Institute has helped propel scores of young men and women into media jobs—all with a Christian perspective on their work.”

And I’d persuade you to thank yourself, as we frequently thank you, because without your membership, the gift memberships you’ve given, and the charitable contributions you’ve made on top of everything else, we would not be around to tell the stories of what’s really happening in the world.

Getting you to talk to yourself is not my only goal, of course. After you’ve had this conversation with yourself, I hope you’ll take the envelope bound into this issue and send it our way with a check indicating your support.

But I’m well aware, as you ponder how much might be appropriate for such a gift, that you might be one of those who responds best to a good scare. You want me to haul out a real enemy—maybe in Tehran, in Syria, or even in the IRS office in Washington. If I do it right, I just might create the image of an enemy that needs your vigorous opposition by enabling us

Email: jbelz@wng.org

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to enhance the product WORLD creates with every story it tells.

Ah, but on the other hand, you might be a supporter who responds best to heartening words about how God has all this messy mayhem under control. You respond not to fearmongering but to encouragement.

How do I decide which of those two instruments to play?

That’s easy. WORLD, in every story it tells, plays both instruments. We are here partly to detail for you what a miserable mess we humans have made of God’s marvelous creation and order of things. Hard and depressing as it is, we need to hear that side of things. We can’t be knowledgeable citizens without such coverage.

But we also need to hear the promise of God’s ultimate redemption. We need to be reminded that our Redeemer is the one who will triumph in the end, equipping us with His full and effective armor.

WORLD promises never to forget its duty to sound that side of the story as well. This takes balanced journalism to a whole new level.

That’s why I’m bold to ask you to write out a check to WORLD for , , , or even ,, to continue its balanced two-sided worldview. And every year when I make this request, I also say boldly: I’m looking for  of you who will send me a note committing to give , not just this year, but each year for a three-year stretch. That kind of forward thinking helps us in our longer range planning.

Whatever its size, and whatever the IRS decides to do over the coming year (subliminal scare tactic), your gift to WORLD is fully tax deductible. To give quickly and securely online, visit wng.org/worldmovers.

What other gift lets you legitimately think of yourself as both a pessimist and an optimist at the very same time? We’re painfully aware of and acquainted with the enemy. But better than that, we know the One who will vanquish all His and our foes. A

NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD



10/29/13 2:52 PM

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WORLD_PoeticWonder_FP_FINAL.indd 2 23 NEWS-1.indd 4

10/18/13 2:07 PM 10/28/13 10:46 AM

Dispatches News > Quotables > Quick Takes

Oct. 22: Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrives at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, to receive the Sakharov human rights prize she won in 1990 at the height of the Myanmar military crackdown.

She won the prize as the military ignored elections won by her National League for Democracy party after suppressing a bloody popular uprising. The military put Suu Kyi under house arrest for long periods and only freed her in 2010.

Accepting the prize 23 years later to a standing ovation, she is now a member of Myanmar’s parliament and is expected to again be a presidential candidate.

FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP/Getty Images

N o v e m b e r 1 6 , 2 0 1 3 • W OR L D

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5

10/30/13 11:59 AM

T h u r s d a y, O c t .  

Iran talks A round of talks in Geneva aimed at curbing Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons ended with U.S. negotiators claiming progress and a possible roadmap toward an agreement. But analysts warned against Tehran’s pledge to “cooperate” with the IAEA, the UN’s nuclear monitoring agency, after years of its misleading international monitors and violating the terms of its accession to the NonProliferation Treaty.

We d n e s d a y, O c t .  

Done deal Special election

Newark Mayor Cory Booker won a special election, becoming the fourth African-American popularly elected to the U.S. Senate. The Democrat beat Republican challenger Steve Lonegan with  percent of the vote to Lonegan’s  percent.

Booker will serve the  months remaining of the term of Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who died in June.

 

Legal weed Washington state regulators finalized rules that allow over  retailers to sell marijuana legally. Voters approved a ballot initiative in  legalizing private possession of up to  ounce of pot for recreational use. Washington is the second state to issue rules for legal marijuana markets after Colorado approved similar rules last month.

The Justice Department says it opposes the legal sales but won’t sue either state.

Take a cab Transit workers in San Francisco went on strike, stranding about , commuters who use the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system. It was the second time in less than a year the unions representing transit workers struck—despite base salaries that average , and a flat monthly fee for health insurance of . When the BART district and unions reached a tentative contract agreement Oct. , it included a  percent pay raise over four years but increased worker contributions to health insurance.

BOEHNER: EVAN VUCCI/AP • MARIJUANA: ELAINE THOMPSON/AP • BART: ERIC RISBERG/AP • ONLY: ABC

Both houses of Congress voted Wednesday night to approve a bill to fund the government through Jan.  and raise the debt ceiling on federal spending through Feb. . The president signed the measure early Thursday morning in a round of classic lawmaking that contrasted with  days of dysfunction following the Oct.  shutdown.

The agreement offered only temporary relief from the gridlock that’s become the mark of divided government. Despite a loss for Republicans on efforts to defund Obamacare, the standoff ended with automatic spending cuts intact under the sequester.

Overwhelmed Case workers received over , offers after Davion Only, , made a plea during a Sunday church service for a family to “love me until I die.” In foster care his whole life, Only made a speech that went national to worshippers at St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church in St. Petersburg, Fla. “I’ll take anyone,” he said. “Old or young, dad or mom, black, white, purple. I don’t care. And I would be really appreciative. The best I could be.”



WORLD • NOVEMBER 16, 2013

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Download WORLD’s iPad app today; details at wng.org/iPad

10/29/13 11:06 AM

PHILIPPINES: ERIK DE CASTRO/REUTERS/LANDOV • KLINE: JOHN HANNA/AP • UN: CRAIG RUTTLE/AP • CAIRO: KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • VICTORINO: CHARLES KRUPA/AP • FOLEY: JEFF VINNICK/REUTERS/LANDOV

Dispatches > News

BOEHNER: EVAN VUCCI/AP • MARIJUANA: ELAINE THOMPSON/AP • BART: ERIC RISBERG/AP • ONLY: ABC

PHILIPPINES: ERIK DE CASTRO/REUTERS/LANDOV • KLINE: JOHN HANNA/AP • UN: CRAIG RUTTLE/AP • CAIRO: KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • VICTORINO: CHARLES KRUPA/AP • FOLEY: JEFF VINNICK/REUTERS/LANDOV

F r i d a y, O c t .  

Quake damage

Three days after a . magnitude quake struck the central Philippines, killing at least  people, the number of displaced spiked nearly tenfold, from , people to over ,. Damaged and blocked roads and electricity and water outages forced many to leave their homes. The quake damaged over , homes along with airports, hospitals, schools, bridges, and a number of historic churches in the vicinity of Cebu, the Philippines’ second largest city.

Cherry-picked The Kansas Supreme Court indefinitely suspended the law license of former state Attorney General Phill Kline, citing “clear and convincing evidence” of professional misconduct. Kline’s fight with the state’s legal and political establishment started in  when he began investigating Planned Parenthood and late-term abortionist George Tiller. Kline discovered repeated violations of state law as the abortionists failed to report pregnancies of underage girls that were results of child rape. But Kline, who now teaches law at Liberty University, got vilified by abortion advocates and state officials, including then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

The court’s conclusion, that Kline violated  rules of professional conduct, amounted to “cherry picking” oral and written comments over many years, said Kline lawyer Thomas Condit: “There was never any deliberate dishonesty on Mr. Kline’s part.”

About-face Only hours after winning a coveted seat on the UN Security Council for the first time, Saudi Arabia made a stunning about-face: It rejected the seat, denouncing the body for failing to resolve world conflicts, particularly Syria’s civil war. The move was an indirect swipe at the United States. Relations between Washington and Riyadh have soured after President Obama backed off military strikes against Syria, and over warming relations between the U.S. and Iran. Four days later, Prince Bandar bin Sultan told European diplomats Saudi Arabia plans to limit interaction with the United States.

S a t u r d a y & S u n d a y, O c t .   -  

Cairo attack Masked gunmen opened fire on a Sunday night wedding celebration near Cairo, killing four and wounding about  people as Coptic Christians left the Church of the Virgin Mary in a Cairo suburb. The assault was the latest in a wave of attacks against Christians in Egypt since the August ouster of President Mohamed Morsi and a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.

Muslim Brotherhood supporters blame Christians for Morsi’s downfall.

Among the dead were two girls, ages  and .

It’s October A seventh-inning grand slam by Shane Victorino gave the Boston Red Sox a - victory over the Detroit Tigers in Game  to win the American League championship Saturday night. With the St. Louis Cardinals’ Friday night clench of the National League playoff series—their th league pennant—the two faced off in the  World Series, a repeat of the  series but with different lineups on both sides.

Died Former House Speaker Tom Foley,, , died Oct.  following months of illness. The Democrat from Washington state served  years in Congress but in  became the first speaker in more than a century to be defeated for reelection in the midst of the “Republican Revolution” that turned the House over to the GOP under Speaker Newt Gingrich. Prior to running for Congress, Foley had been a state prosecutor and a Senate committee staffer.

NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD

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10/29/13 11:06 AM

Dispatches > News Tu e s d a y, O c t .  

Better late ...

M o n d a y, O c t .  

Fanned flames

Australian officials declared a state of emergency after more than  wildfires in New South Wales, kicked up by high temperatures and wind, destroyed over  homes and headed to Sydney’s western suburbs. As fires burned through tens of thousands of acres, firefighters took a daring tactic: back-burning to halt the spread of the biggest fires that risked joining the separate blazes into one mega-fire. With easing weather conditions the tactic worked, if temporarily. One man died of a heart attack protecting his house, and a pilot was killed Oct.  when his water bomber plane crashed.

Personal pitch Hoping to save public opinion over the disastrous rollout of Obamacare, President Obama himself addressed in a Rose Garden speech problems plaguing the system. “The Affordable Care Act is not just a website,” he said. Despite technical problems that have kept Americans from enrolling or seeing premium prices under the new system, Obama said, “The product is good.” As he concluded a lengthy speech, one of the women brought in to stand behind the president appeared to faint, and the president appeared to catch her.

Deadly school day Authorities released  calls from students at a Sparks, Nev., middle school a day after a -year-old boy allegedly killed a teacher, wounded two fellow students, and took his own life. Teacher Michael Landsberry, who survived two military tours in Afghanistan, died in the shooting while shielding students.

Died Icons of the Houston Oilers, the NFL franchise that became the Tennessee Titans, died within days of each other. Bum Phillips (left), , the Oilers coach and general manager from -, died Oct. . Bud Adams (right), , who in  helped launch the American Football League—forerunner to today’s AFC—in , died Oct. . Adams moved his team from Houston to Nashville in , had more wins than any other current NFL owner, but never won a Super Bowl.



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AUSTRALIA: SAEED KHAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES •OBAMA: MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES • SUU KYI: HANDOUT • LANDSBERRY: NEVADA AIR NATIONAL GUARD/AP • PHILLIPS: DAVE EINSEL/AP • ADAMS: WADE PAYNE/AP

Burmese democracy activist and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi received the Sakharov Prize— years after European parliamentarians awarded it. She won the annual prize in  while under house arrest for her role in pro-democracy protests in Burma, also known as Myanmar.

After an extended standing ovation, she told a packed chamber of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, “Freedom of thought is essential for human progress.” Authorities released Suu Kyi, who in  received the Nobel Peace Prize, from house arrest in . In  she won a seat in Parliament and has said she may run for president of Myanmar in .

Wng.org: Your online source for today’s news, Christian views

10/29/13 11:12 AM

Australia: SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images •Obama:Mark Wilson/Getty Images • Suu Kyi: handout • Landsberry: Nevada Air National Guard/ap • Phillips: Dave Einsel/ap • adams: Wade Payne/ap

NEW

M E E T T H E O N E WHO IS PEACE Each of us is on a search for peace. During this season, we bake cookies and play music, but such comforts only hint at a much greater peace in the distance. The good news of Christmas is that we can stop searching, because we already know the One who is peace. This new book reminds us of the real meaning of Christmas, a world-changing event that reaches beyond December 25th and affects every life, every day, for all of time. Jesus is our peace (Ephesians 2:14a). Meditations, Bible passages, and hymns unite with beautiful illustrations inviting you and your family to enter into the true peace of Christmas. Now available wherever books are sold.

ReformationTrust.com | 800.435.4343

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10/14/13 3:32 PM 10/28/13 10:47 AM

Dispatches > News T h u r s d a y, O c t .  

Blame game Testifying before a House committee, contractors tasked with building the government’s healthcare exchange website blamed official footdragging for its troubled launch. The frustration was bipartisan: “This is ,” said Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif.

“Amazon and eBay don’t crash the day before Christmas, and ProFlowers doesn’t crash on Valentine’s Day.” We d n e s d a y, O c t .  

Weightless wonder The space thriller Gravity surpassed the  million mark in worldwide ticket sales, holding the top spot on U.S. charts for a record three weekends in a row. The weightless wonder became not only the th-highest-grossing film of the year but the highest-selling film for D tickets—over  percent of Gravity-goers saw the film at D showings that carried viewers into space.

Anglicans gather

New Mexico’s Supreme Court heard arguments for granting same-sex couples legal sanction to marry, just as New Jersey become the th state to legalize gay marriage on Oct. . In both cases legalization got a boost from Republican governors: New Mexico’s Gov. Susana Martinez tempered her personal opposition to same-sex marriage, saying voters ought to decide; and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie dropped his appeal of a lowercourt decision legalizing gay marriage.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby christened future British monarch Prince George, son of Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge.

In a rare religious ceremony including four generations of Britain’s royal family, the -month-old received water from the River Jordan. Earlier, Welby traveled to Kenya for GAFCON, the gathering of conservative primates from the global Anglican church. He told delegates he could stay “only  hours” and “would like to stay  weeks” but “I have to baptize George our next King but two.”

In  Welby taught school outside Nairobi and said he “met Christ and gave my life to Him” through the witness of Kenyan Christians.

New Delhi, India

Polio resurgence World Polio Day unfolded amid worrying reports the disease is making a comeback. Three new polio cases were confirmed in Pakistan, and  suspected cases have been reported in Syria—another sign of deteriorating conditions in the wartorn country.

Released Los Angeles jailers quietly freed Michael Jackson’s doctor on Oct. , two years after he was convicted of killing the pop superstar with an overdose of a powerful anesthetic. Conrad Murray, , had served half of his maximum sentence for involuntary manslaughter. Despite street demonstrations against him during his  trial, and protests from the Jackson family, Murray says he hopes to be reinstated to practice medicine again. Jackson had hired Murray to be his personal doctor for a  comeback tour. 

CREDIT GRAVITY: WARNER BROS. PICTURES/AP • WELBY: BEN CURTIS/AP • POLIO: TSERING TOPGYAL/AP • MURRAY: KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/POOL/AP

Courts reach

WORLD • NOVEMBER 16, 2013

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CREDIT CREDIT

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10/29/13 11:18 AM

Dispatches > News Time to go

F r i d a y, O c t .  

Getting a bomb

A new report said Iran could be as little as a month away from acquiring enough uranium to produce a nuclear bomb—and Israeli officials say they won’t wait for that to happen. “We have made it crystal clear—in all possible forums, that Israel will not stand by and watch Iran develop weaponry that will put us, the entire Middle East and eventually the world, under an Iranian umbrella of terror,” Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon told USA Today. The Institute for Science and International Security issued its report Oct.  stating Iran could reach “breakout”— the time needed to convert low-enriched uranium to weapons-grade uranium—in as little as a month.

Transatlantic tiff Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy ordered the U.S. ambassador to appear at his country’s foreign ministry in a cascading furor by European leaders over U.S. surveillance activity. France did likewise. And before that, German Chancellor Angela Merkel picked up her (presumably bugged) phone and called President Barack Obama herself, as aides described her as “livid” over new documents indicating NSA was monitoring her cellphone, along with millions of others.

Drive on In a dramatic display of civil disobedience, dozens of women in Saudi Arabia took to the streets—and behind the wheel—to protest the kingdom’s ban on women driving. Riyadh police took five women into custody. Many of the women posted videos of their ventures on YouTube, along with their names in a show of defiance. “I’m very proud. I feel like we accomplished the purpose of our campaign,” said economics researcher Mai Al-Swayan.

DANON: DAN BALILTY • MERKEL: JULIAN STRATENSCHULTE/DPA/AP • CHURCH: HANDOUT • SAUDI DRIVER: CHANGE.ORG/AP • YOUNG: CHRIS O’MEARA/AP

One of the largest congregations in the Presbyterian Church USA, ,-member Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas, voted Sunday to leave the denomination. It plans to join the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians (ECO) formed by former PCUSA congregations in , but is locked in a legal battle over the congregation’s  million church campus.

Died Bill Young, the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, died Oct.  at age . Young, a strong defense proponent, became involved in politics in  and won a seat in Congress in . Leaders suspended most congressional activities on Oct.  so lawmakers could attend Young’s funeral. House Speaker John Boehner said Young “loved, in this order, God, his family, his country, and the House Appropriations Committee.” 

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10/30/13 11:40 AM

POWER: 123ARTISTIMAGES/PHOTOS.COM • RYAN: JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES • BRANSTAD: GAGE SKIDMORE • AUCTION: HANDOUT • DALLAS: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • MOHR: NEWS CHANNEL 12

S a t u r d a y & S u n d a y, O c t .   -  

Nov. 13

A federal judge in Texas sided with pro-abortion advocates, blocking a “restriction” in a new state law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Similar provisions have passed several state legislatures— as the number of women dying from legal abortions has doubled even as the number of abortions overall is in decline. Texas officials say they will appeal the decision to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Nov. 17 The Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, will play host to the Formula One season’s penultimate race—the United States Grand Prix. Thanks to racing competitor NASCAR and the glut of other sports options, F’s popularity in the United States has been small in recent years. But last year, the Austin race attracted more than , attendees.

Health snare Beset by a nonfunctioning website and mounting concerns about healthcare coverage, the Obama administration granted a six-week extension until March  for Americans to sign up for coverage and avoid new tax penalties under the new healthcare law.

   .

See an unexpected faceoff between pastors Mark Driscoll and John MacArthur, visit the hardest hit areas of Hurricane Sandy one year later, and check out online commentary from Marvin Olasky, Andrée Seu Peterson, and Cal Thomas.

ta d

Texas decision

LOOKING AHEAD

Nov. 15

For political animals, it’s never too early to think about the next presidential election. So Rep. Paul Ryan’s trip to Iowa today B ra should raise eyebrows. The Wisconsin Republican and powerful n Budget Committee chairman plans to headline a fundraiser for Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, but Ryan could also be in the early primary state to test the waters for himself.

ns

Recaptured The Syrian army retook the ancient Christian town of Sadad, following a week of fighting that had besieged about , Christians living there. The al-Qaeda militants who attacked the town last week reportedly killed nine residents in the central square.

a Ry

DANON: DAN BALILTY • MERKEL: JULIAN STRATENSCHULTE/DPA/AP • CHURCH: HANDOUT • SAUDI DRIVER: CHANGE.ORG/AP • YOUNG: CHRIS O’MEARA/AP

POWER: 123ARTISTIMAGES/PHOTOS.COM • RYAN: JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES • BRANSTAD: GAGE SKIDMORE • AUCTION: HANDOUT • DALLAS: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • MOHR: NEWS CHANNEL 12

M o n d a y, O c t .  

Power companies, the federal government, and state governments will conduct an emergency drill today to test how the nation might respond to a major failure in the country’s power grid. A utility industry group will conduct the two-day drill by simulating the response to mass power outages. Though no real power outages should occur, the drill has sparked a spate of conspiracy theories on the internet.

Nov. 22

Dallas, slandered as the “City of Hate” after the  assassination of President John F. Kennedy, will put its best foot forward when the nation remembers the th anniversary of that tragic November day. This year, event coordinators are making the public apply for tickets in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the th anniversary when conspiracy theorists with bullhorns packed Dealey Plaza.

Nov. 22

The exclusive Highland Park, Ill., home of former NBA superstar Michael Jordan will go up for auction today. Concierge Auctions will require a , deposit for all interested bidders. The ,-squarefoot home rests on a .-acre property outside of Chicago. With his children grown, Jordan says he plans to downsize and keep his ,-square-foot home in North Carolina.

Graduated A Pennsylvania man found the perfect way to celebrate his th wedding anniversary and his th birthday on Oct. : He earned his high-school diploma on the same day. Bill Mohr was halfway through St. Joseph’s Preparatory School—which is still in operation—in Philadelphia when his father’s job transfer prompted him to drop out in . He said it became his only regret in life.

Mohr, who continued driving until he was , is the second-oldest living World War II veteran.

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NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD

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10/30/13 11:41 AM

Dispatches > News

Plan obsolescence Obamacare pushes millions out of insurance policies the president promised they could keep By Edward Lee Pitts

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T

he sticker shock for millions came after an already ­turbulent rollout of Obamacare. On Oct. 1, the date of Obamacare’s launch, the president said that buying health insurance under the program’s website would be as simple as when you “shop for a plane ticket on Kayak or a TV on Amazon.”

Instead the system was far from ready: The few users able even to log on to the site have been plagued with long delays, bugs, crashes, and error messages.

Attempts to register by everyone from reporters on live television to the Wyoming insurance commissioner all ended in failure. Contractors testified at congressional hearings that testing on the complex website didn’t commence until two weeks before the start date. As a result, a website costing about $500 million to develop crashed shortly after midnight on Oct. 1 with about 2,000 people ­trying to use it.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said a visit to the website made a trip to the DMV seem pleasant. But this time it’s not just Republicans bashing Obama’s ­signature law. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire was among Democrats calling the rollout a “disaster.”

Obamacare supporters first dubbed the problems as glitches, but the truth is closer to chaos; and the combination

JOE SKIPPER/Reuters/Landov

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sending cancellation notices to many of the estimated 14 million Americans who buy their own insurance. The ­terminations are occurring because current polices are no longer comprehensive enough to match what the ­federal government has deemed the ”minimum standards” under Obamacare.

Kaiser Permanente will void polices for 160,000 Californians on Jan. 1 while Blue Shield of California sent termination letters to 119,000 customers.

At least 300,000 Floridians are losing ­coverage as well as 146,000 Michigan residents. More than 800,000 individuals, many of them small-business owners, will be affected in New Jersey.

Most of these middle-class Americans are getting squeezed by Obamacare because they don’t get employer-provided insurance and they make too much money to qualify for government subsidies. Many may choose to pay the fine for not having insurance since it will be cheaper than the increased rates. Such decisions will inflate premiums even more for those buying polices.

Jim White, a high-school math teacher and coach, is afraid this will lead to the collapse of the insurance industry and the creation of a single payer system run by the government.

“This is not about providing health insurance,” he said. “It’s about growing the government. If they have control of your healthcare then they have control of you.”

Already most of those using Obamacare are treating it as a new entitlement: 82 percent of new enrollments for Obamacare in Kentucky and 87 percent in Washington are for coverage through Medicaid instead of the offered exchanges.

Wng.org: Your online source for today’s news, Christian views

10/30/13 11:50 AM

Evan Vucci/ap

>>

Jim and Vicki White have spent about a decade paying $402 a month for a health insurance plan with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama. It carries a $5,000 deductible. But they recently received a letter from their insurer that their monthly premium would skyrocket about 344 percent to more than $1,380 a month.

Despite the rate increase this new plan would include a higher, $6,000 ­deductible. The reason: a law called the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

“We were dumbfounded and ticked off to say the least,” said Vicki White, an office manager. “I found it comical they would use the term affordable in calling it the Affordable Care Act. That sure is a lot of spin. People are going to wake up when they find out what this is going to cost them.”

The Whites, both healthy and in their early sixties, discovered the cheapest Obamacare-approved plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield would cost $861 monthly—more than twice what they are paying now—and carry a $12,600 deductible. That meant about $23,000 in out-of-pocket expenses before a penny of insurance kicked in.

They are now looking at joining ­Medi-share, a program where Christians share in each other’s healthcare costs. “If they had started this a year ago before the elections I wonder if Obama would have been reelected,” Jim White said.

In 2009, President Obama promised, “If you like your healthcare plan, you will be able to keep your healthcare plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.” He repeated the promise all the way through his reelection campaign in 2012. But with Obamacare beginning, insurers are

EVAN VUCCI/AP

JOE SKIPPER/REUTERS/LANDOV

of cancelled policies, price-gouging rates, and a useless website has Democratic lawmakers, especially in conservative-leaning states, starting to speak out.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., wants a one-year delay on the penalty for not buying insurance. At least  Senate Democrats, including those seeking reelection in states that Obama lost in  such as Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Kay Hagan of North Carolina, are asking the Obama administration to postpone the March  deadline for Obamacare sign-up.

These voices remained silent during the GOP-led push to defund or delay Obamacare leading up to the recent

Email: lpitts@wng.org

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UNHEALTHY SITUATION: Ricardo Mola speaks with a certified application counselor after unsuccessfully trying to enroll for Affordable Care Act insurance in Miami, Fla.; Landrieu (right) and Shaheen.

government shutdown. But these Democrats are feeling the constituent pressure now. Obama may not be able to ignore such fretting from within his own party. Meanwhile Sen. Ron

Johnson, R.-Wis., is introducing a bill allowing people to keep their current plan despite Obamacare’s mandates.

The GOP is hoping voters remember them as the anti-Obamacare party.

“I really don’t like Republican tactics,” Obama supporter Tom Waschura of California recently told the San Jose Mercury News after learning his insurance plan would increase by , annually. “But at least now I can understand why they are so mad about this.” A

NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD



10/30/13 11:52 AM

Dispatches > Quotables ‘Not everything which is technically doable should be done.’

German chancellor ANGELA MERKEL at a July press conference about U.S. surveillance of Germany.

Merkel called President Obama in October over new reports that the U.S. government had tapped her cell phone.

‘I’m infuriated because I was lied to.’

Liberal Washington Post columnist RUTH MARCUS to feminists who attacked Slate columnist Emily Yoffe for advising young women not to engage in binge drinking because doing so puts them at risk of rape. Many feminists said Yoffe was “blaming the victim” and calling on women to “sacrifice their freedom … so we don’t have to disturb the status quo.”

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U.S. House Democratic Whip STENY HOYER on Democrats during the political battle over Obamacare. In , Hoyer repeated President Obama’s promise: “I say all the time, with respect to their health insurance program that they now have: if you’ve got it, you like it, you keep it.”

‘People think we went too far, and you know, we’re devil worshippers and we must not be Christian folk.

They’ve said all kinds of stuff. But we’re normal.

We love Jesus. We celebrate Halloween.’

JENNIFER MULLINS of Mustang, Okla., on reactions to her family’s graphic Halloween display that includes splattered blood and dummies made up to look like victims of terrible accidents.

Johnnie Mullins

DRINKING: PASCAL DELOCHE/DPA/LANDOV • MERKEL: SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES • HOYER: CHARLES DHARAPAK/AP • MULLINS: SUE OGROCKI/AP

‘This isn’t a gender studies class; it’s the real world.’

‘We knew that there would be some policies that would not qualify, and therefore people would be required to get more extensive coverage.’

Wng.org: Your online source for today’s news, Christian views

10/30/13 11:26 AM

CREDIT

DEBORAH CAVALLARO of Westchester, Calif., on President Obama’s assurances, while campaigning for Obamacare’s passage, that Americans who liked their health insurance policies would be able to keep them. The healthcare law is forcing millions of Americans into often much more expensive policies than they had prior to Obamacare.

CREDIT

DRINKING: PASCAL DELOCHE/DPA/Landov • MERKEL: Sean Gallup/Getty Images • HOYER: Charles Dharapak/AP • MULLINS: Sue Ogrocki/AP

10/30/13 11:14 AM

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Mostly cloudy It’s not hard to see how pollution is making life hard in one gritty Chinese city.

In fact, it’s hard to see anything else. Officials in Harbin in northeast China shut down the city on Oct. 20 in response to a thick cloud of smog that settled low over the city and diminished visibility to just 30 feet. China’s official news agency blamed the smog on a variety of factors, from farmers burning their fields outside the city to the switching-on of the city’s coal-powered heating system. Hospitals in the area reported a dramatic uptick in patients admitted for respiratory illness as the smog persisted for days.

Cold storage Not all Environmental Protection Agency cleanup efforts halted during October’s 16-day federal ­government shutdown. EPA chief Gina McCarthy directed employees who remained on the payroll during the budget impasse to spend their time cleaning up a different sort of hazardous waste site: the EPA office fridge. According to an email sent during the shutdown, McCarthy said EPA essential personnel were rifling through office fridges and tossing out all perishable items. According to the agency chief, government workers even found a 16-year-old can of soup in the fridge of a Chicago EPA office.

Lovely reminder More than 60 years after penning a love letter to his future wife, Allen Tully’s ­letter finally has arrived. On Oct. 9, Tully, an 84-year-old from Omaha, Neb., pulled a strange letter from his mailbox. It was written in his own hand, but carried a July 23, 1950, postmark. Furthermore, it was apparently sent from Savannah, Ga.—a place where Tully briefly resided while serving in the Army. Inside the envelope, Tully found a letter he had written to his then girlfriend, Betsey Lieber, now his wife of 58 years. But neither can understand how the love letter made it to their mailbox after 63 years in transit. The address listed on the envelope is nowhere near where the couple currently resides.

And the post office says it didn’t deliver the ­missive. But Tully seems unconcerned by the mystery. For the couple, the letter rekindles the love that has endured for more than half a century.

18

There have been bacon milkshakes. There have been beer milkshakes. And on Oct. 31, there was the best of both worlds. Patrons of the Texas Motor Speedway outside of Dallas who came for the Texas 500 NASCAR race had the opportunity to pick up the bacon beer milkshake from one of the raceway’s concession stands. Known as the Shake’n Bacon Brew, concessioners mixed 6 ounces of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream, 2 ounces of candied bacon, and half a bottle of Rahr & Sons Ugly Pug Black Lager to create the porky desert. Of course, customers for whom the concoction was not enough were able to add whipped cream and bacon bits on top.

Harbin: STR/AFP/Getty Images • Illustration: krieg Barrie • letter: ALYSSA SCHUKAR/THE WORLD-HERALD • milkshake: handout

Texas shake

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10/29/13 3:58 PM

carp: StuartGillham/BNPS • candy: nkbimages/istock • spider: D. Kucharski K. Kucharska/shutterstock • alligator: ABC • cat: jamievanbuskirk/istock

Dispatches > Quick Takes

   An Iowa dentist sick of fixing cavities brought on by Halloween candy splurges has now decided to put her money where her mouth is. In October, West Des Moines dentist Steffany Mohan announced plans to conduct a candy buy-back program before and after Halloween. The dentist said she would be giving  for every  pound of unopened candy turned in to her office on Nov. . Mohan said she plans to wrap the unopened candy and send it to American soldiers overseas.

HARBIN: STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • LETTER: ALYSSA SCHUKAR/THE WORLD-HERALD • MILKSHAKE: HANDOUT

CARP: STUARTGILLHAM/BNPS • CANDY: NKBIMAGES/ISTOCK • SPIDER: D. KUCHARSKI K. KUCHARSKA/SHUTTERSTOCK • ALLIGATOR: ABC • CAT: JAMIEVANBUSKIRK/ISTOCK

   Most people might recoil in horror, but for Keith Williams (left), his -pound carp is a thing of beauty. Williams hooked the massive fish while vacationing in Thailand last month. The United Kingdom native said he had a premonition that it would be a good day to fish—especially considering it was his birthday. So the -year-old traveler took rod and reel to the waters near the Gillham fishing resort in Krabi, Thailand. Once he hooked the beast, it took Williams  minutes to reel in the giant Siamese carp. Better still: Once the International Game Fish Association confirms the weight, Williams will own the record for largest carp ever caught.

   Many Toyota owners may get a recall notice soon, but they may not want to know why. Spider infestations have caused carmaker Toyota to recall , late-model Camrys, Venzas, and Avalons. Toyota executives say air-conditioning drainage tubes in each of the three models have become a prime biome for tiny spiders to set up shop. According to company officials, infesting spiders that build webs inside the small tube could cause a blockage that in turn would force water to drip elsewhere in the car—the airbag control module, for instance. The company has been dealing with complaints of spontaneously firing airbags, and subsequent investigation has fingered spiders as the culprit.

  Not all shoppers are welcome at Walmart, at least not ones that may try to eat other shoppers. A -foot-long alligator decided to loiter outside the Apopka, Fla., Walmart on Oct. , getting close enough to the store to make the automatic doors open and close. Store employees locked the doors while customers made their way to the front to get a glimpse of the gator. “It was a nice size gator, just chillin’,” shopper Robin Watkins told WKMG Local . “It was neat. It was neat to see. But I’m glad they locked the doors for safety because I do have my child with me.” The alligator left for a nearby lake before a trapper could arrive. Earlier in October a large deer made it into a Subway shop inside the Walmart in Goldsboro, N.C. The -point buck wandered in the shop for an hour and knocked over chairs before animal control officials gave it a tranquilizer shot and removed it.

  A controversial proposal by Los Angeles officials has some Angelinos wondering whether they will ever get rid of their feral cat problems.

New rules proposed by L.A. Animal Services director Brenda Barnette, would give feral cats some semblance of property rights. Under current law, homeowners have the right to remove from their property any animal that uses the yard as a bathroom or causes damages. Under Barnette’s proposal, the City of Los Angeles would strip homeowners of that power, recognizing a cat’s right to do its business with impunity wherever it likes.

Available in Apple’s App Store: Download WORLD’s iPad app today

23 QUICK TAKES.indd 19

NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD



10/29/13 3:58 PM

Janie B. Cheaney

Broken music

Without the structure of nuclear families, communities lapse into noise

>>

Tyrese

WORLD • NOVEMBER 16, 2013

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fifth. These mathematical ratios produce a pleasing musical progression known the world over. Based on this external framework, Western music established principles of harmony and melody that endured all the way up until the early th century. And what happened then?

Contemporary composer John Adams put it this way: “I learned in college that tonality died somewhere around the time that Nietzsche’s God died, and I believed it.” No God, no order. Musical structure collapsed, clearing the way for Arnold Schoenberg, who composed pieces built on abstract principles of numerology. From there it was only a step or two to John Cage, who tossed dice to pick the notes for his compositions and staged “symphonies” around kitchen appliances. Not all avant garde composers abandoned tonality, but music cut off from its defining structure ceased to be anything we would recognize as music.

Likewise, what defines society is relationships, built not on mathematical ratios but biology. It’s an undeniable fact that, among humans, a male sperm joined to a female egg produces a human being. The young woman from Sioux Falls knew this when she hooked up with Peterson, and so did he—he has two children from previous relationships. The boyfriend had at least one child, while acting as surrogate daddy to little Ty. The results of these random couplings drift like little wanderers from one family-like arrangement to another but never forge strong connections, except perhaps for a fraught relationship with Mom. Like music, community was once based on standard chords and intervals: the socalled nuclear family of father, mother, and child. Flexible enough for many variations, strong enough to sustain a melody. Without it, the hum of community lapses into noise.

Are we becoming too accustomed to noise?

Adrian Peterson didn’t miss his Sunday game because “football is something I always fall back on.” The mother can’t be reached for comment, and the boyfriend is jailed without parole, pending trial. He’ll pay. We all will. A

TYRESE: HANDOUT • PETERSON: ANN HEISENFELT/AP



I    surrounding the government shutdown and Obamacare rollout, we still had football. That’s one consolation, except for a very sad story that hit the airwaves in the middle of a political storm.

About three years ago Adrian Peterson, star running back of the Minnesota Vikings, became, briefly, very well acquainted with an attractive young woman named Ashley from Sioux Falls, S.D. Some nine months later, Ashley had a baby boy she named Tyrese. She wasn’t sure who the father was, but as time went on and the little boy looked more and more like a certain NFL player, she contacted Peterson and asked for a paternity test. He agreed, the test turned out positive, and he promised to pay the boy a visit at some future date.

Meanwhile Ashley moved in with a new boyfriend.

The boyfriend had a record of domestic assault—two women had filed complaints against him, the second one twice. Perhaps Ashley didn’t know this when she moved in. Perhaps she shouldn’t have left the apartment the afternoon of Oct. , because something happened: The boyfriend allegedly snapped, and little Ty received injuries that put him in the hospital with severe head trauma. When Peterson received word, he flew to the boy’s side, but his son never regained consciousness and died near midnight on Oct. .

There’s no word for this but heartbreaking. I presume the mother is heartbroken, and Peterson, and perhaps in his twisted way the boyfriend—beyond that, I don’t know what’s going on in anybody’s heart. What’s going on in the world, though, is countless broken connections.

I’ve been researching various forms of creative expression for a possible book, and the branch of the arts that fascinates me most is the one I know least about: music. The main thing about music is relationship. Melody consists not in individual notes, but in the intervals between them. The ancient (and possibly mythical) philosopher Pythagoras discovered that dividing a lyre string in half produces an octave, while three-quarters of the string sounds a fourth and two-thirds sounds a perfect

Email: jcheaney@wng.org

10/28/13 10:35 AM

Tyrese: handout • Peterson: Ann Heisenfelt/ap

Free Shipping World 11.15.13.indd 1 23 CHEANEY.indd 21

9/19/13 2:58:02 PM 10/28/13 10:30 AM

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

“I never felt like I was fighting my cancer alone.”

Because God helped me discover the place I needed to be.

Just a few years after my husband passed away, I was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. My friend recommended Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (CTCA) because of their unique treatment approach.

The moment I walked into CTCA®, I felt the presence of peace and healing power. As a woman of faith, I prayed through my treatments—and my team prayed with me.

I went to CTCA for their medical expertise, integrated care and spiritual support. Today, I’m back to my active life and feel truly blessed that God put me on the path to this wonderful place.

If you or someone you love is fighting complex or advanced stage cancer, call or visit us online today.

-Kimalea Conrad

Stage 2 Breast Cancer Patient Telluride, Colorado

CREDIT

800.541.9785 cancercenter.com/faith

Hospitals in: Atlanta | Chicago | Philadelphia | Phoenix | Tulsa No case is typical. You should not expect to experience these results.

23 MOVIES & TV.indd 22

©2013 Rising Tide

10/28/13 10:37 AM

Reviews Movies  TV > Books > QA  > Music A

TELEVISION: Both cable and network TV are suddenly under the spell of sorcery-themed programming

Witches’ brew

BY MEGAN BASHAM

BROWNIE HARRIS/FOX

>>

O O. , New York magazine’s online entertainment outlet, Vulture, surprised broadcast industry watchers when it revealed that CBS is developing a remake of Charmed, the supernatural soap opera that aired on the WB from  to . Why would CBS, at the top of the ratings heap for the last few years, be interested in developing an only recently canceled, B-rate melodrama that originated on a second-tier, now-defunct network? Simple, the storyline involves witches.

Forget the usual legal dramas and police procedurals, horror-themed programming—specifically sorcery-themed programming—has suddenly grown so ubiquitous, media outlets from The New York Daily News to the U.K.’s Guardian have declared the - television season the season of the witch. Tying the

Email: mbasham@wng.org

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upsurge of witchy shows into an overall gothic trend that includes NBC’s Grimm, ABC’s Once Upon a Time franchise, and AMC’s The Walking Dead, the Hollywood Reporter noted, “Horror, once a niche domain, is flourishing in film and television. [It] never has played as broadly (and as profitably) as it does today.”

This is particularly clear when one considers the enchantresses gracing small screens this fall who are far more explicit in their occult origins than their cheery predecessors like Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Samantha from Bewitched. Fox’s Sleepy Hollow (the only new series so far this season to receive a second order) leads the pack of new shows and offers the broadest evidence of the rising appeal of dark DARK MATTERS: forces. Among the A scene from mishmash of Sleepy Hollow.

liberties the show takes with Washington Irving’s classic tale, the most outlandish is the inclusion of a coven of “good” witches whose spirits make regular contact with the living, offering vague references to the horned beast of Revelation as well as other out-ofcontext bits of the New Testament.

From a popularity standpoint, Sleepy Hollow’s closest rival has to be American Horror Story: Coven on FX. Though the series, which stars Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, and Angela Bassett, was already infamous for heavy doses of explicit sex and violence, as well as a strong anti-Christian bent, it didn’t become a ratings winner until its current third outing, when producers added a bonus ingredient of witchcraft.

Coven has already outperformed the show’s first and second seasons by  percent and  percent, respectively, and

NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD



10/29/13 4:36 PM

Reviews > Movies & TV

TELEVISION

Killing Kennedy   . 



WITCH WAY UP: American Horror Story: Coven (left), The Originals (right), and Charmed (below).

season. Based on the novel by best-selling Young Adult author Melissa de la Cruz, the show represents quite a change of direction for a network whose previously best-known series were Army Wives and Drop Dead Diva, a show about a plussized lawyer.

And the witch parade doesn’t end there. The CW is offering The Originals, a spinoff from The Vampire Diaries that features a coven of witches who join forces with werewolves. One network, WGN America, is even depending on the sorcery to make its first foray into the scripted arena a success. It is currently producing Salem, a show about witches in thcentury Massachusetts.

Given the rising demand for occult-themed shows, it’s hard to blame CBS—the home of hits like NCIS, Person of Interest, and Bluebloods—if they’re suddenly scrambling to find their own entry into the field. It may reveal nothing more about the Tiffany network than a desire to compete. The question is, what does it reveal about American TV viewers? A

WORLD • NOVEMBER 16, 2013

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Lowe and Goodwin

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: MICHELE K. SHORT/FX • THE ORIGINALS: ANNETTE BROWN/THE CW • CHARMED: WARNER BROS. • KENNEDYS: KENT EANES/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL

its first two episodes scored in the top three most-viewed telecasts in the network’s history with numbers topping even the major networks among women aged -. This particular result, said creator Ryan Murphy, who also brought audiences Fox’s Glee, was an intentional aim on the part of producers. “This season is designed to be a little more fun, and specifically to invite women to the party,” he recently explained.

Among the elements young women are apparently finding fun? Bestiality, incest, and bathing in human blood.

Murphy isn’t the only one betting that witches will appeal to female audiences. Lifetime, the cable channel specifically targeted at women, is promoting End, the Witches of East End story of a family of sorceresses who divine the future and work resurrection spells on the dead and fertility charms on the barren, as the linchpin of its fall

A      that works better than it sounds, Killing Kennedy—premiering on National Geographic Channel Nov. —provides a tantalizing, if shallow, taste of history.

This is the second in a trilogy based on books by Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly; the first, Killing Lincoln, earned the channel record-high ratings in February and Killing Jesus is planned for .

O’Reilly’s controversial book, which many critics accuse of ignoring unanswered questions about Kennedy’s assassination, only contributes the skeleton of the movie. Killing Kennedy, like Killing Lincoln before it, is much more intent on empathizing with the assassin than in resurrecting a dead president.

The high-caliber cast—Rob Lowe as John F. Kennedy, Ginnifer Goodwin as Jackie Kennedy, Jack Noseworthy as Bobby Kennedy—prevent the Kennedys from becoming mere cameos in a movie that plays hopscotch with the major events that defined JFK’s presidency, barely touching on the Bay of Pigs invasion or civil rights. Instead, the movie spends time on JFK’s womanizing, including one pool scene that features a woman’s nude behind. (Later, another character, Jack Ruby, is introduced in a strip club.)

Lee Harvey Oswald’s life runs parallel to JFK’s, in this portrayal. Will Rothhaar, who plays Oswald, told WORLD he played him as desperate for love and support. Oswald in the movie is a bully, a self-pitying, self-righteous narcissist.

And not particularly clever.

In contrast to Goodwin’s misty-eyed, in-love, and endlessly supportive Jackie, Oswald’s Russian-speaking wife Marina—played by Michelle Trachtenberg —questions her husband’s character and actions. At one point, Oswald slaps her.

If you are as ignorant of history as National Geographic assumes, you might learn a few superficial details from this movie. But the details O’Reilly’s book dwelt on are lost in favor of compelling visuals. The movie recreates many of the iconic shots from JFK’s presidency, and plucks others from the archives.

The movie never loses sight of the fact that it is retelling history—though it uses a light touch that allows for some moments of levity—and that gives it gravitas even though much is left untold.

See all our movie reviews at wng.org/movies

10/29/13 4:45 PM

WALT DISNEY FEATURE ANIMATION

>>

MOVIE

by Emily Belz

>>

Walt Disney Feature Animation

American Horror Story: Michele K. Short/FX • The Originals: Annette Brown/The CW • Charmed: Warner Bros. • kennedys: Kent Eanes/National Geographic Channel

Frozen Frozen, a Disney animated film for the upcoming holiday season, will go in the file of Disney animated classics alongside other recent successes like Tangled. But even as it plays the classic, it changes some of the fundamental Disney story ingredients.

Instead of the same old princesslooking-for-her-prince love story, this is a story about love between siblings, with a wonderful twist on the classic fairy tale ending. I think this is the story Pixar was trying to tell in Brave, about the incredible value of family love. Frozen tells that story better.

The film might initially trick you with its cheesy princess set-up. Two sisters, princesses Elsa and Anna, live shut up in a castle but finally open the gates for the elder Elsa’s coronation as queen. The younger, Princess Anna, bursts into song at the possibilities of whom she might meet at the coronation after so many years alone. As the celebration begins, Anna, of course, trips into the arms of a young visiting prince, Hans. They spend the evening singing a duet together about all they have in common, about finding true love, and decide to announce their marriage plans to the new Queen Elsa.

This is the point where the formulaic Disney fairy tale takes a turn. The plot has excellent red herrings and surprises. You see the evidence of the

“story trust” John Lasseter started at Disney, the in-house police of character arcs and themes. The three rules of the story trust: “Compelling stories, believable worlds, and engaging characters.”

The story is “inspired by” Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen.” Elsa, in the role of the Snow Queen, has a secret power to freeze.

The directors and writers Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee initially wrote the story closer to the original, with Elsa as a villain. But over the 2½ years they worked on the film—animation is still the most painstaking movie form—they told me they changed Elsa’s character to be more complex, and to make the sibling relationship central.

Elsa, fearful of how her freezing powers might hurt her sister, runs away from the castle, and once she’s atop a faraway mountain, she sings a song about how she is finally free to be herself, to quit hiding her ice powers.

Box Office Top 10 For the weekend of Oct. 25-27 ­ according to Box Office Mojo

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

S V L 1̀ 2̀ 3̀ 4̀

5̀ 6̀ 7̀ 8̀ 9̀

10 `

Bad Grandpa R..........................7 5 6 Gravity* PG-13............................ 1 5 5 Captain Phillips* PG-13.......... 1 5 4 The Counselor* R....................7 7 8 Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2* PG.................. 1 3 2 Carrie R.........................................6 7 5 Escape Plan R............................2 6 9 12 Years a Slave* R.................8 8 5 Enough Said PG-13...................5 2 4 Prisoners R................................. 1 7 9

*Reviewed by world

23 MOVIES & TV.indd 25

“No right, no wrong, no rules for me,” she sings. This “be true to yourself” song is classic Disney, along the lines of Aladdin’s “A Whole New World.” But Frozen flips the paradigm—we find that while Elsa was “just being herself,” she unknowingly wreaked destruction back home. In a later song, she realizes, “[There’s] no escape from the storm inside of me.” The comedic snowman Olaf explains at one point that love is not being true to yourself, but rather “putting someone else’s needs before yours.” (Olaf is one of the many great side characters in the movie, including the reindeer Sven and a Norwegian sauna owner.) “[A Disney film] has such a wide audience, it really informs morals and the mindset of a kid growing up,” said Jonathan Groff, the voice of Kristoff, the ice salesman who helps Anna look for Elsa. “I feel more excited about that than being the voice of a Disney character.”

Children will love the animation in this film; the animators turn the frozen kingdom into a playground, all swooping and sliding. Elsa’s ice creations, even when they’re dangerous, are ­gorgeous. The snow, the result of a new software Disney developed in-house, clumps and dumps on characters like the real thing.

A reporter asked Idina Menzel, the voice of Elsa, about the movie’s “female empowerment.” “It’s more than female empowerment,” said Menzel. “It’s about family, it’s about sisters. … It’s larger than any story Disney has told in the past.”

A small tip: Stay through to the end of the credits. A

N o v e m b e r 1 6 , 2 0 1 3 • WORLD

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10/29/13 4:46 PM

America by threes

America 3.0, Consciousness 3, and a 3-letter word

By Marvin Olasky

>>

26

W OR L D • N o v e m b e r 1 6 , 2 0 1 3

23 BOOKS.indd 26

krieg barrie

Because of a memory from 1970 I had to chuckle about the underlying premise of a provocative book, America 3.0, by James Bennett and Michael Lotus (Encounter Books, 2013).

They say the United States is going through its second major transition.

America 1.0, based on family farms and small business, gave way after the Civil War to America 2.0, an industrialized society in which big—big business, ­cities, unions, and government—was beautiful. The future, though, belongs to America 3.0, a country of computeraided small-run manufacturing and handicrafts, inexpensive housing and energy, drug legalization, and political decentralization with 71 states (including five Texases, three Californias, and a New York City separated from upstate).

America 3.0 amused me because a long time ago I sat in a course offered

by Yale professor Charles Reich, author of a No. 1 bestseller in 1970 and 1971, The Greening of America. Reich argued that America had gone from Consciousness I, the mindset of rural farmers and small-business folk, to Consciousness II, the “organizational society” worldview that liked bigness and bureaucracy, and was on the cusp of Consciousness III, an egalitarian world of blue jeans, rock music, and marijuana. There everyone would do what was right in his own eyes, and everyone would get along.

Reich’s triple play was a left-wing vision and America 3.0 is libertarian, but neither vision is truly practical for many reasons, the shortest of which has three letters: S-I-N. The Bible ­regularly shows how affluence regularly leads to arrogance, and America is no exception. What’s the likelihood of our recapturing some humility and, through God’s grace, starting to follow what the Bible teaches rather than our own desires?

Greg Forster’s Joy for the World: How Christianity Lost its Cultural Influence & Can Begin Rebuilding It (Crossway, 2013) goes deeper than Bennett and Lotus and far deeper than Reich. Forster argues, “Society needs to see it as ­normal and expected, not scary and threatening, when people have different beliefs about the universe—beliefs that

are unspeakably precious to them and organize their whole lives. These unshared beliefs will create uncomfortable social tensions. Society must embrace these tensions as healthy and beneficial, rather than shying away from them in fear.”

In essence, the United States is a boardinghouse where different ­religions inhabit different rooms but share a refrigerator, and to survive we require each person not to throw out food belonging to others. “Freedom of religion requires a delicate balancing act: it does not enforce religion, but it requires religion. … The basic public morality that we all need to agree upon presupposes exactly the kind of metaphysical grounding that we don’t all agree upon, and never will.”

Forster says the way for Christians to lose influence is to hang around the corridors of power and kiss up to leaders. Instead, “We want the powers to hate us. Their hatred is an infallible sign we’re succeeding in blessing our neighbors. … If we see that the powers hate us, far from compromising with them in order to minimize conflict, we should ruthlessly double down on whatever it is we’re doing that serves our neighbors better.”

Forster wants us to be honest, though, in seeing whether the hatred comes from following Christ or our own desires: Sometimes, “if we see that the worldly powers have contempt for us, we should reexamine our approach to how we live.” Risking all to follow biblical teaching only makes sense if we uphold the doctrine of scriptural inspiration, although that doctrine is sometimes inconvenient: “A church that believes in looser theories of inspiration, which don’t treat the text itself as the inspired Word, has no external standard.”

The external standard Christians desperately need is not a prosperity gospel or an America 10.0. We can be Christian citizens without arrogance if we remember Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” A

Email: molasky@wng.org

10/28/13 10:41 AM

handout

Reviews > Books

NOTABLE BOOKS

SPOTLIGHT

Bibles for the growing child > reviewed by  . 

My Very First Bible Lois Rock Very young children typically start out with Bible storybooks rather than the real text, and My Very First Bible comes attractively slipcovered with My Very First Prayers. They are a handy size (” x ½”) to slip into a diaper bag or tote, and while not board-book sturdy the pages are thick and well-bound. Simple illustrations integrate seamlessly with the simple text that emphasizes God’s intense involvement with mankind and man’s responsive faith and obedience. The theology is not as profound as in The Jesus Storybook Bible, but the presentation of God as a loving, caring Father (echoed in the prayer collection) is appropriate for this age.

The ICB Cupcake Bible published by Thomas Nelson No recipes included: All baked goods are limited to the cover. This is the most recent of several editions of the International Children’s Bible, a simplified translation (third-grade level) with a slightly larger font size that may be a good choice for beginning or reluctant readers. Sometimes the translation is a bit too literal, making it more difficult to understand, perhaps, than an adult translation would be, but the ICB can be helpful as a supplemental translation. Twentyfour color inserts feature “Names of God,” “Bible Kids,” “How Do I Pray?,” “How Do I Know Jesus Loves Me?,” a “Bible Timeline,” and a place to enter “My Favorite Bible Verses.”

ESV Grow! Bible published by Crossway The signature feature of Grow! is the “Cross Connection,”  brief expositions of the Old Testament messianic prophesies and their fulfillment in Christ. This places Christ squarely at the center, where He should be. Other in-text features include applications, Who-What-When-Where-Why questions and answers, and each petition of the Lord’s Prayer treated separately. Preface and appendix materials include standards such as where to find Bible references for personal situations, but also theological questions and topical issues, maps, diagrams, and glossary. A page on the Ten Commandments titled “You Shall” contrasts the positive side of each commandment that the negative implies. The features make this ESV a solid transition for middle-graders into a real study Bible.

KRIEG BARRIE

HANDOUT

NIV Rock Solid Faith Study Bible for Teens published by Zondervan This Bible does use the updated version of the NIV, which includes gender-neutral language. Some parents may want to give it to their - to -year-olds who are new to the Bible and need a little orientation. Following the format of many NIV children and teen editions, it includes book introductions and in-text features emphasizing God’s promises and attributes, Bible principles that address teen concerns, and biblical character sketches. A reading plan, subject index, maps, and extensive (but not exhaustive) concordance round out the study helps in the appendix. A more scripturally grounded young adult may need more fuel for discussion and thought, such as the HCSB Apologetics Study Bible for Students.

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

23 BOOKS.indd 27

The dystopia fad sparked by The Hunger Games has waned, but Zondervan Blink, the publisher’s new YA imprint, offers two worthy additions to the genre this fall.

In Jill Williamson’s Captives (first of a trilogy), a high-tech, water-starved society facing extinction in the American West has taken to abducting young people from the outlying communities. The impact of a raid from “Denver City” on three rural brothers forms the narrative arc of the story, which has won particular praise for character development. Jonathan Friesen’s Aquifer takes place in far-future Australia, where a highly regimented society depends on an appointed “Deliverer” to descend to the depths every year and negotiate for its annual supply of fresh water. After a somewhat disjointed beginning, the action accelerates with the discovery of a book that will have a profound effect on the protagonist. Both novels raise important ethical and spiritual questions without coming off as overtly “Christian.” —J.C.

NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD



10/28/13 10:43 AM

Christians need not apply?

CRAIG JAMES lost his job for taking a Bible-based position on marriage during a political campaign. He’s fighting back in a crucial court case By Marvin Olasky

>>

My column in WORLD’s Nov. 2 issue was about a crucial religious liberty battle now being fought out in both a court of law and the court of public opinion. Fox Sports in September fired football analyst Craig James, a former NFL Offensive Player of the Year, after only one week on the job. Company executives had learned that James, while unsuccessfully running for the U.S. Senate last year, had expressed a Bible-based opposition to same-sex marriage.

James is a member of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas. Many readers expressed interest in the situation, so here’s an opportunity to hear about it from James himself, whom I interviewed in front of Patrick Henry College students.

Tell us about your background and your faith. I was born in a Texas farming community and learned how to pick tomatoes at a very young age. I also saw love for the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through my grandparents and my parents. I’ve tried to live according to His desires for us.

It’s been lately, in my life, that I’ve come to understand more about my purpose in life—to share with people that there is good news, and that’s Jesus.

28

What is the statement you made while running for the Senate that led Fox Sports to fire you? I said marriage is between a man and a woman. I talked a little bit more about the moral fiber of our country, that we’re on a slide and we need people who will stand boldly for their beliefs.

You expressed yourself civilly—no slurs or bad ­language—but you referred to homosexuality as a choice. We all are born with sinful tendencies, and have to choose whether to act on those tendencies. I choose not to act in adultery. God will judge me for my actions.

You’re opposed to both homosexuality and heterosexual adultery. There was an Adam and an Eve. I go back to all of the Book, not part of it.

In business and in ­politics, you’ve hired gay guys. I hire them based on qualifications. I’ll leave it up to God to judge them for their choices.

Did you apply to Fox Sports for a job? They called and heard I had an interest in getting back into broadcasting.

They said, “We’ve got a show for you on Saturday night, a one-hour program, and we’d love to have you.” I said, “I’d love to do it.” They issued a very flattering, complimentary

press release, talking about my credentials, saying I’d be an asset to their coverage. I went on the air the next night, did my one-hour show. On Sunday evening, I received a phone call.

What did the caller say?

“Your services are no longer needed. We’re not going to continue with this.” I’m sitting there thinking, “This has to be a joke.” It wasn’t a joke. Within hours I found out that a Fox Sports spokesperson had told the Dallas Morning News that, basically, my biblical belief in the definition of marriage was not going to fly at Fox Sports.

Let me make sure we all understand this. You didn’t suddenly go into an on-theair tirade about gays. This was something you voiced during a political campaign, upholding a position held by 76 percent of Texans who voted in 2005 on a state constitutional amendment defining marriage—which means if you are unemployable in a position for which you are well-suited, then three out of four Texans should also be unemployable. Even Gov. Perry would have a hard time selling that.

You didn’t say God is on the side of the Dallas Cowboys? He obviously is not right now!

A liberal, pro-gay writer on The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf, wrote, “If Craig James had said he would never vote to give a gay athlete the Heisman Trophy, or Player of the Game honors, because to do so would elevate a ­s inner, then that would be grounds to refrain from hiring him.” You didn’t do that? No. But you’ve been made unemployable in your profession. Thank you very much for that reminder. My wife reminded me of that, too! But I go back to my faith: I have peace on this because I know God’s in control. Still, I’m not going to be quiet. I’m going to tell the truth. A gay activist in an email told me, “It’s dead wrong what happened to you.”

He said, “The gay community has got to stop bullying people who have a different opinion.

We’ve got to respect their ability to hold what’s dear to their hearts. We want that same tolerance coming our way.”

The liberal writer, Conor Friedersdorf, understands that, so he wrote about your case, “to not hire someone for prior remarks made amidst civic debate, and that are indistinguishable from the position taken by almost half of all Americans, this is unjust.” Are you getting support from any other liberals? We hope to wake up people to the double standard.

Keith Olbermann can have a position, and even say it on the air, and he’s OK, but I don’t have a right to biblical beliefs. What we can’t have in this country is a point where a corporation feels empowered to punish those who have a biblical belief.

That’s the chilling effect of this moment in my life.

W O R L D • No v e m b e r 1 6 , 2 0 1 3

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10/28/13 11:02 AM

Pat Sullivan/ap

Reviews > Q&A

PAT SULLIVAN/AP

If folks want to register their concern with Fox Sports, how should they do that? Email dan.bell@fox.com.

I’ve tried to say, “Look, reinstate me. Put me back on the air.” It’s unlikely that will happen, but we’re trying to pressure them to admit they made a mistake! I really hope that  years from now Americans will look back and say our time was a fork in the road, and those who enjoyed and appreciated religious liberty and the First Amendment, fought for it. That would be a great moment for our country.

I was reading last night a novel set in Berlin during Hitler’s years. One character makes an honest comment, and the person to whom he’s speaking smiles a bit and says, “What you said just now: You reminded me of something. I was remembering what it was like to speak without looking over your shoulder.” If Fox Sports’ fi ring of you stands, it will be an awful precedent. We’ll lose freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Some people who are following this have told me how they’re quiet in their workplace, and worried that if their boss finds out about their stand on an issue, he’ll hold it against them. If this isn’t challenged and made right, people will be looking over their shoulders.

That’s not right.

That’s not America. A

Email: molasky@wng.org

23 Q&A.indd 29

NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD



10/28/13 11:02 AM

Reviews > Music

Don’t be so predictable Another open letter to Miley Cyrus BY ARSEN IO ORTEZ A

WORLD • NOVEMBER 16, 2013

23 MUSIC.indd 30

 Corinthians.

True, you then add “Love is jealous, / love is selfish, / love is helpless, / love is blind,” but half a loaf is better than no bread, and, frankly, these days even crumbs are welcome, if only to mark the way through the forest back to one’s home and away from the candy house. The positive reference to “holy matrimony” in “Adore You” is welcome too.

And speaking of  Corinthians, you might do well to consider chapter , verse . “If a woman has long hair, it is her glory. ... For her hair is given to her for a

covering.”

You used to have long hair. It looked good on you. You were pretty. Now you look like Justin Bieber (of whom, trust me, one is enough). And given the recent emergence on the internet of your latest soft-porn photo shoot, you need all the covering you can get. Contrary to popular opinion, modesty does not indicate shame about one’s body but a healthy ability to feel good without the dubious affirmation of a million voyeuristic eyes.

The only eyes that matter are God’s, the truth of which you seem to glimpse through a glass darkly. “Remember, only God can judge us,” you correctly proclaim in your Bangerz song “We Can’t Stop”—correctly, that is, if by judgment you really mean Judgment Day. What you’re wrong about is your ability to stop.

Use it or lose it, girl. A

JAMIE McCARTHY/GETTY IMAGES



there are permanent structures undergirding and tethering us to reality.

There are, however, archetypal—even divine— comedies too. And, to your credit, you demonstrate an awareness of and desire to experience, them. “Love is patient, / love is selfless, / love is hopeful, / love is kind,” you sing at the end of “Someone Else” (not a bad song actually) quoting Paul’s famous “love chapter” in

Email: aorteza@wng.org

10/29/13 2:55 PM

HANDOUT

>>

M C: As the recipient of more open letters than anyone else in recent memory, the last thing you need is another one. Then again, the last thing the world needs is another album of rapper-studded, blatantly manipulative strumpet pop.

So maybe if you keep getting these uninvited missives, you’ll understand something of the glut those of us feel who’ve had to immerse ourselves in your new album Bangerz (RCA) out of professional obligation. It’s too much. And it makes us want to take a bath or at least wash our ears out with soap. (Congratulations on debuting at No.  on Billboard by the way.)

Entertainment, you see, requires the element of surprise, and there’s nothing surprising anymore about watching a young pop starlet addicted to attention abuse it like a drug and melt down. Britney Spears, the guest vocalist on your new album’s semi-title cut “SMS (Bangerz),” maxed out that template way back when you were Hannah Montana. By the time Lindsay Lohan depressingly followed suit, it already felt like overkill.

And don’t forget Jean Harlow, Frances Farmer, Marilyn Monroe, Anissa Jones, Tatum O’Neal, Tanya Tucker, Maureen McCormick, Dana Plato, Jennifer Capriati, Princess Diana, Amy Winehouse, and Whitney Houston to name just . (We’re still holding our breath on Keha, Jennifer Lawrence, and Taylor Swift—and scratching our heads about Chastity Bono.)

The world, in other words, expects those whom Peter (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit no less) once likened to “weaker vessel[s]” to crack under the pressures of disproportionate fame or the agonies of attention-addiction withdrawal. As Aristotle could confirm, seeing such archetypal tragedies repeatedly played out fulfills our subconscious need to believe that somewhere beneath the chaotic winds of current events

NOTABLE CDs

SPOTLIGHT

New or recent pop-rock releases > reviewed by  

Terra Rosa Jace Everett Considering the gusto with which he throws himself into these original Southern Gothic country songs based on famous Bible heroes and villains, you’d never know that Everett no longer identifies (much) with the conservative evangelicalism that shaped his adolescence. His empathetic first-person Judas song, “Love Cut Me Down,” isn’t as sharp as James Wright’s empathetic first-person Judas poem, “St. Judas,” and some names and details have been changed to protect the guilty. But, compared, say, to Superstar, the results feel deep and Jesus Christ Superstar wide indeed.

The Collection Sara Groves With  uniformly excellent songs highlighting Groves’ first  music-making years and four new songs foreshadowing her next, The Collection is all anyone who has missed out on this gifted CCM singer-songwriter needs to start catching up. The only problem with experiencing so much uniformity—excellent or otherwise—in one place is that a midtempo, melancholy sameness accumulates, de-emphasizing what’s most special about Groves’ most special moments. Not until Track , “Setting Up the Pins,” does playfulness leaven her intense, relentlessly introspective piety.

Invisible Life Helado Negro Roberto Carlos Lange’s best-known musical pseudonym is Spanish for his wife’s favorite dessert and his childhood nickname respectively. The presumption that Lange is a Christian derives from his albums’ appearing on Sufjan Stevens’ label, not from his lyrics, which heretofore Lange has sung exclusively in Spanish, or his music.

Neither is anti-Christian. Instead, both burble electronically and catchily along in a gently dreamy world of their own. It’s no small compliment to say that they look great on the iTunes visualizer. It’s no big compliment either.

JAMIE McCARTHY/GETTY IMAGES

HANDOUT

Prism Katy Perry Perry’s less overtly trashy this time than on Teenage Dream.. Only “Birthday” celebrates sex to the exclusion of most else. But beware covert trash. In “This Is How We Do,” she “shouts out” various party-hearty demographics, confident that by eating, drinking, and being merry they can forestall a tomorrow in which they (and she) just might die. And she’s dialed back Teenage Dream’s ’s residual Christianity. “By the Grace of God” turns out to be nothing but a st-century “I Am Woman.” Title of first single: “Roar.”

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

23 MUSIC.indd 31

Andy Fairweather Low has paid his bills for the last  years by playing guitar and singing on albums or tours by more famous performers, but he wouldn’t have gotten those gigs if he weren’t money in the bank. And with Zone-O-Tone (Proper), officially credited to “Andy Fairweather Low & the Lowriders,” he reconfirms his worth.

Low excels at conversationally recontextualizing blues, soul, and gospel tropes and tunefully setting them to pop styles that, in addition to the aforementioned genres, include a few that would’ve seemed right at home in the days of vaudeville. Whether exhorting (“If you can’t have what you want, / hold on tight to what you got”), criticizing (“There’s too much la-la music goin’ ’round,” “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have sold out to the rich”), supplicating (“Take me to the river and wash my sins away”), or devoting an entire acoustic waltz to “Love, Hope, Faith & Mercy,” he drinks from an ocean of wisdom. —A.O.

NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD



10/29/13 2:58 PM

Mindy Belz

Give me your tired

Left untended, the refugee crisis from Middle East revolutions is washing up in the West

>>



WORLD • NOVEMBER 16, 2013

23 MINDY.indd 32

They come with next to nothing. Most have only the clothes they are wearing, a cotton scarf draped over their heads to shield the sun, and a plastic grocery bag of belongings, small enough to sit on during the voyage.

Lampedusa has no signpost to welcome, no Colossus to father them home, no Lady Liberty, that mother of exiles. Its strip of land is an emblem for the barest sliver of hope. Its arrivals are mostly starved, unemployed, homeless, penniless, wounded, and orphaned. Lampedusa, simply, is the handiest gateway to Europe, and EU asylum.

Some make it only to find safety elusive. In midOctober about  Syrians who landed at Lampedusa were living hundreds of miles north in Milan’s train station. One woman said she gave birth aboard the boat to the island. Another, aged , is living in the train station with - and -year-old daughters and her -year-old husband. He owned a construction business in Homs, a battleground city between rebels and Syrian forces. She told Agence France-Presse, “We left Homs five months ago. We passed through Jordan, Egypt, and Libya where we lived for three months. We arrived on Lampedusa on Oct. ”—the same day  asylum seekers on a different boat drowned.

“We live without hope as the days go past,” said another refugee. “We want to be settled in any country where we can be safe … so that we don’t have to use the sea.”

The United States has agreed to take in , Syrian refugees—or . percent of its present asylum seekers. We have two lines of heritage I believe call us to do more. First, the Bible is a history of sojourn, of God’s people cast out and then taken in through the mercy of the Almighty. “You who once were far off have been brought near …” Second, Americans approaching a time of Thanksgiving can remember the account of that first crossing, of all our beginnings in the New World, from William Bradford, governor of Plymouth Colony: Being now passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectations, they had now no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them … what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men?

Sheltering homeless war victims isn’t a missile strike, but it could signify strategic engagement of a higher order. A

FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

T   of wars and upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa is washing up on an unlikely place, the -mile-long Mediterranean island of Lampedusa.

TripAdvisor named Lampedusa a Travelers’ Choice  winner. It says the island is “treasured by visitors for its fine white sandy beaches, its clear turquoise waters and its excellent scuba diving.” Geographically closest to Tunisia and North Africa, it’s nonetheless part of Italy, whose mainland is another -mile boat ride away.

Lampedusa hit the headlines in early October, when an overloaded boat carrying mostly Eritreans capsized  yards from shore. Of  refugees onboard,  died. The capsizing and the tragedies are continuing as steadily as the turquoise waves wash Lampedusa’s fine white sandy beaches.

Sea migrations picked up in  during Libya’s civil war, with hundreds and hundreds suddenly arriving by boatloads—first Libyans, then Chadians, Eritreans, DESPERATE: A woman rests as Ghanaians, Nigerians. They have only increased: she waits with  , migrants arrived in  and so far in other migrants  over , have reached Lampedusa. inside an Italian In recent weeks more Syrians are arriving by navy ship after being rescued off boatloads, as  million Syrians forced from their the island of own country—and surrounded by unstable Lampedusa on neighbors—are becoming increasingly desperate Oct. . for a haven. On Oct.  another capsized boat near Lampedusa left about  refugees dead, mostly Syrians. Overnight on Oct.  Italian coast guard officers rescued nearly  Syrian and African refugees headed to Lampedusa aboard four boats.

If you want to look at sheer numbers to quantify the region’s tumble into anarchy, violence, and terrorism, then look to Jordan or Lebanon (see our report on p. ). In Lampedusa you will see something else: how desperate is the will of refugees yearning to breathe free.

Email: mbelz@wng.org

10/29/13 10:55 AM

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10/29/13 12:09 PM

Adoption

und

Children at the Nyumbani Orphanage for children with HIV in Karen, on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya

23 ADOPTION.indd 34

10/29/13 10:03 AM

n

During November, National Adoption Month, watch for noisy attacks on international adoption. Not getting as much attention: hundreds of thousands of dead orphans

nder fire

by SUSAN OLASKY

                / 

NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD

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

10/29/13 10:03 AM

I

    . In  a rash of negative stories with sensational titles, such as “Evangelicals and the Fake Orphan Racket” and “Orphan Fever: The Evangelical Movement’s Adoption Obsession,” have made their way into print, and Kathryn Joyce’s The Child Catchers has spawned articles about child trafficking and corruption. The attacks are propelling questions: What’s in the best interest of children? How important is cultural continuity? Should children have a right to a stable family, even if the family is in a different country? Do children belong to the state?



and chants, “AYAY! AYAY” (“you see, you see”), just as the video clicks off. The next day, Cruz—nicknamed “old man” because he knew everyone’s name—went to the hospital. On Sept. , , he died— months to the day after his birth.

Cruz’s death wasn’t directly caused by adoption delays. He was sick, and couldn’t overcome his poor beginnings. We know his story only because he was in the adoption pipeline, but hundreds of thousands

WORLD • NOVEMBER 16, 2013

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10/29/13 10:10 AM

ROBIN RAYNE NELSON/GENESIS

two blood transfusions. Then Cruz went from the hospital to a transition home to await adoption.

Catherine and Kenny Besk of Santa Cruz, Calif., learned on Aug.  that they had been matched with Cruz. They talked to specialists at Stanford so they could hit the ground running when he arrived in America. A friend in Ethiopia visited Cruz at the transition home and taped a short video, which shows him sitting up and flipping through a book of family photographs sent by the Besks. He looks at the camera

ABYLAY SARALAYEV/AP

Although intercountry adoption has many prominent supporters, the hostile-to-adoption side is winning: In , only , children found families in the United States through intercountry adoption.

Eight years earlier, , orphans did. Even at its peak, intercountry adoption provided families for a mere trickle of the . million double orphans— those without mother or father—in the world.

The war on international adoption is succeeding because Joyce and others emphasize adoptions gone awry. Stories about adopted parents indicted for abuse, children who say they were stolen from their homes, and a desperate mom sending her Russian son back to Moscow have all received massive play. But what about the , orphans under age  who die each year in sub-Saharan Africa? We rarely hear moving stories about them because for the most part they are invisible to Americans.

I did hear the story of one orphan with nut brown skin and eyes, and soft dark hair with a suggestion of curls. Tymm and Laura Hoffman were in the process of adopting the baby they named Brighton Asher, but they never had the opportunity to cuddle him, change his diaper, or learn his various cries. He died in Ethiopia on Jan. , , in a hospital thousands of miles from the Hoffman’s home in Atlanta. He had spent most of the  days he lived in an Ethiopian orphanage, where he eventually became sick with pneumonia and diarrhea.

I also spoke with the would-be adoptive parents of a -year-old they named Cruz Chernat Besk. He was suffering from malaria, TB, and kwashiorkor, a severe form of malnutrition, when his father brought him to the orphanage. The staff sent him to Addis Ababa, where he spent  days in the hospital, received nutrients through a feeding tube, and had

of similar children die under the radar.

Tymm Hoffman says in the past seven years he’s talked to more than 50 families with the same experience.

Adoption proponent Elizabeth Bartholet of Harvard Law School says ­tragedies like those of Brighton and Cruz are frequent: “For most unparented children the real alternative to international adoption is life, or death, in institutions or on the street.”

Research backs that up. In “Who Wants to Adopt and Who Wants to Be Adopted,” Christopher Balding and Feng Yan, both Ph.D.s., studied orphans in subSaharan Africa and found that orphans who live with

Abylay Saralayev/ap

Robin Rayne Nelson/genesis

NOT invisible: Laura and Tymm Hoffman with a photo of Brighton Asher (above); Kyrgyz orphans play in an orphanage in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (left).

Kyrgyzstan suspended international adoptions in 2008 due to allegations of fraud.

extended family members receive “less education than biological siblings.” When resources are scarce, orphans “were given less developmental assistance … even when provided with additional public assistance.”

Similarly, Princeton researchers found “orphans are significantly disadvantaged” when it comes to school enrollment. Ann Case and her co-authors found a bias against orphans, which was worse when children lived with distant relatives and nonrelatives: “The degree of relatedness between orphans and their adult caregivers is highly predictive of children’s outcomes.”

David Smolin of Samford Law School agrees that some institutional care is harmful, but dwells on ­positive in-country solutions for orphans: family ­preservation, domestic adoption or foster care, and

N o v e m b e r 1 6 , 2 0 1 3 • W ORL D

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37

10/29/13 10:10 AM

Adopting older children brings special challenges, and not everyone is called to it BY SUSAN OLASKY

R

  ran a series of sensational stories about desperate adoptive parents who turned to internet message boards to find new parents for children they had promised to love forever. Although no one knows how many parents disrupt adoptions, “re-homing” is more common when people adopt older children from other countries.

Ramona Edwards, , criticizes “the Wal-Mart syndrome” on such message boards. She says she’s the queen of returns, yet she’d never reject a child—but some prospective adoptive parents get caught up in an emotional frenzy about adoption and are unprepared for the difficulties.

Edwards says, “They have to be committed to loving whoever God is putting into their lives and not put their own expectations on this child. … God calls people to do different things. Not everybody is supposed to bring an older child home.”

Her advice: Parents need to be better prepared for problems such as fetal alcohol syndrome among Russian adoptees and exposure to violence among those from Africa. Adoptive parents should admit that it’s hard: “God forbid that I would interfere with one orphan finding a loving family, but I’ve seen homes destroyed because parents were not prepared—absolutely torn apart.”

Edwards understands the confusion and desperation parents can feel. She and her husband Bob, , adopted two older sibling groups from a Russian orphanage, so they know firsthand the problems.

Parents in such situations rarely know the extent of the trauma their children have experienced and the coping mechanisms they’ve developed: Bullying, abuse of drugs and alcohol, manipulation and lying by some adoptees can be shocking. And they receive little support from adoption agencies or social services.

Edwards used to spend time on Christian message boards, counseling



parents to seek help and not give up. She recalls parents pleading for someone to take their children. Some turned to the internet to receive sympathy rather than biblical challenge. Others were desperate and fearful with nowhere else to turn. She heard heartbreaking stories of children who put their families in danger and found herself trying to answer the question, “What do you do when you bring a child into your home who is a danger to your other children? You’re responsible to protect other family members.”

But more often, families just didn’t bond with their adopted children and wanted to be rid of them. A decade ago Naomi, then , and Anna, then , joined the Edwards family three months apart after they could not meet the expectations of their adoptive mothers. Their stories show how deep problems can be, and how the grace of God can help families persevere.

Naomi, as an -year-old in a jungle village in Vietnam, carried the burden of her alcoholic mother’s dying command: Take care of your little sisters!

Naomi remembers having to protect a -year-old and a -month-old, and the relief she felt going to an orphanage where they had a nice bed and good food.

They lived in the orphanage for three years before being adopted to America, into a family with a Vietnamese mother and an American father. At first things were good: “I felt I was in heaven. We each got our own room.”

The orphanage hadn’t done potty training, so when her littlest sister

COMMITTED: Ramona, Anna, Bob, and Naomi (from left to right).

HANDOUT PHOTOS

  

had an accident the adoptive mother responded harshly, sometimes locking her in the garage. Naomi tried to protect her little sister, but that made things worse.

She remembers the mom yelling in Vietnamese and the American dad yelling in English, both saying the same thing: “We’re going to give you to another family.”

Naomi’s mom wanted her to act and look like an American—but she wasn’t. They threatened to keep her sisters and get rid of Naomi. They asked her if that’s what she wanted, and Naomi agreed: “I was scared. I just wanted to please her.”

Ramona and Bob Edwards heard about the situation from an urgent bulletin on an adoption email list. They offered to adopt all three girls, but the mom had already found a home in Canada for the two younger ones. Naomi moved into the Edwards home in Alabama and shut down emotionally. In less than a year, she had left Vietnam with two sisters, joined a new family, been rejected by that family, and lost the two sisters she had pledged to care for. She spoke little English and was thrust into a home with eight siblings, five of them from Russia.

Naomi was angry and depressed, convinced she was a horrible person. It took time for her to adjust and begin to understand she wasn’t at fault, that she was only

WORLD • NOVEMBER 16, 2013

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10/29/13 10:20 AM

HANDOUT PHOTOS

a child. She struggled to understand why she had to go through all that. Eventually she accepted her new family and for the first time had a relationship with a dad.

Months later, the Edwardses received word of a girl from Kazakhstan whose adoptive mother complained that after three years they hadn’t bonded. Once again the Edwardses stepped in. Anna Edwards recalls that her first year in America was good because everything was new. But gradually her mother became harsher, and Anna sensed she couldn’t please her. Her adoptive parents called her stupid and tried to erase her Kazakh identity: “I didn’t want to learn English. I was stubborn. She took away all my Russian CDs and Kazakh books to force me to learn English. ... I had to be an American girl.”

Anna became more resistant. She remembers sneaking food and having to ask permission to use the bathroom. But she didn’t suspect what her parents were planning until they withdrew her from soccer and Tae Kwon Do classes, while letting her younger brothers, adopted from Korea, continue. Searching through her parents’ papers, she found something saying they were going to find her a new family.

Anna says at first she was glad to be gone, but she was also angry and felt her life was meaningless. Worried that her new adoptive parents would also abandon her, she held things in and then would blow. It took her three years to call the Edwardses Mom and Dad. As the Edwardses’  children (nine years apart in age) went through their teenage years, many of them acted out. Ramona Edwards told me, “We were naïve like everyone else. It’s only by the grace of God that we aren’t on Reuters [message board exposé].” Anna, now , recalls, “We always had Bible study.”

Reading the Gospel of John helped her gain perspective: “I started realizing I’m okay.

I’m saved by God.” Despite the struggles, Ramona Edwards says, “We love our adopted children.” Bob Edwards says, “I feel like I found a diamond in someone else’s trash heap.”

Anna Edwards says, “My first family made me stronger. The reason I went through that is so I could ... meet God.” Naomi Edwards Loyd, now married and expecting her second child, says she was only able to put away her anger after she became a believer in Christ: “It was a long time ago.

I’m good now. It doesn’t hurt me anymore.”

“family-like” institutional care—“in effect, boarding schools for the poor, providing children with opportunities for education and adequate nutrition.”

That kind of care does exist. Benedict Schwartz moved his family to Zambia in  to begin the kind of orphan home that Smolin recommends. Villages of Hope (VoH) in the Chibomba District offers family care with children living in small houses with Zambian “mothers.” Social services officials vet incoming children, including those with mothers in prison, to make sure they are truly in need, The school prepares children to live in Zambia, and no child will age out and face

homelessness: They’ll be able to build houses on the land and stay, raising their own families in the village in which they grew up.

But Villages of Hope is home to only  orphans. Many more live with extended families, as Smolin recommends, but Schwartz notes that “many extended families are not safe places for kids.”

Places like Villages of Hope make up one strand of the Christian orphan care movement. Relief and development make up another, and so does international adoption. Chuck Johnson, president of the National Council for Adoption, says, “Intercountry adoption is not the solution for the world’s orphan population. It’s a solution.” It may not be right for every orphan, but for those for whom it is a good fit, it makes a world of difference.

What about the accusations of adoption fraud, which send tremors throughout the adoption world and lead policymakers to halt or significantly slow adoptions from targeted countries?

The accusations don’t have to be proven—even the suggestion is enough to cause delays. On its website, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Service (USCIS) notes about Ethiopia: “Certain

PROVIDING OPPORTUNITIES: Villages of Hope.

NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD

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

10/29/13 10:21 AM

fraud indicators and patterns that suggest possible malfeasance or unethical behavior in some cases.”

But experts don’t agree what those indicators and patterns signify. Elizabeth Bartholet writes, “There is no persuasive evidence that such abuses are widespread; instead, they seem a very small part of the total international adoption picture, with the overwhelming majority of adoptions taking place in compliance with the law.

David Smolin disagrees: “Significant segments of the adoption community are in deep denial about the prevalence and seriousness of abusive practices in intercountry adoption.” He suggests “the subsequent failure to adequately respond to these abuses, constitutes the greatest threat to the future of intercountry adoption.”

How can ordinary folks sort this out? The USCIS website seems to side with Bartholet: “No cases from Ethiopia have been denied based on findings of fraud.”

Nonetheless, in  the Ethiopian government slowed referrals from  to five a month, leaving adoptive families like the Besks waiting ½ years after their

dossier was complete before receiving the referral for Cruz.

Chuck Johnson says if people are committed to intercountry adoption, it’s possible to figure out systems to weed out fraud. But many critics have philosophical problems with it, which make them less interested in reforming systems than in making intercountry adoption rare.

The ambivalence leads to shutdowns and delays, which means—as Johnson says—“Children die because they’re already vulnerable to begin with.”

Catherine Besk says about possible corruption: “We don’t stop doing what is right, because there are evil people doing evil VULNERABLE: things. If anything, we Cruz Besk. fight harder to do it the right way.” She says they want the world to know that Cruz did not die an orphan: “We went to Ethiopia to claim him as our son and lay him to rest. Even though we never got to see his precious face, he was ours and he was LOVED.” They plan to move forward with another adoption because “we think there is no better way to honor Cruz. We don’t want this journey to end in death, but to continue with the hope of new life.” A

 

“A Frank Analysis of the Child Catchers” by Jedd Medefind, president of the Christian Alliance for Orphans. christianalliancefor orphans.org/wp-content/uploads/A-Frank-Analysis-of-THE-CHILD-CATCHERS.pdf. This paper offers a thoughtful response to Kathryn Joyce’s book.

A debate between law professors David Smolin and Elizabeth Bartholet at works.bepress.com/david_smolin/. This chapter is from Intercountry Adoption: Policies, Practices, and Outcomes, edited by Judith L. Gibbons and Karen Smith Rotabi ().

To get a sense of the hostility to adoption, visit the running “archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption” called “How Could You?” at reformtalk.net////how-could-you-hall-of-shame-reeces-rainbow-ukrainianadoptee. Commenters speculate wildly about any publicized death or accident involving an adopted child.



WORLD • NOVEMBER 16, 2013

23 ADOPTION.indd 40

HANDOUT

Poundpuplegacy.org gives an annual Demons of Adoption Award “to raise a voice against adoption propaganda.” Recipients include the makers of the movie Juno, Bethany Christian Services, and the National Council for Adoption.

Email: solasky@wng.org

10/29/13 10:31 AM

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Outside the camps Syrians fleeing war in their own country find strife in surrounding nations, too by ja mie dea n p h o t o b y D a n n y L a w s o n / PA /a p

o grasp the scale of Syria’s refugee crisis, consider mornings at the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan: Young boys climb barbedwire fences to gain better spots in distribution lines, as UN World Food Program workers hand out a half million pieces of pita bread.

More than 120,000 refugees live in the camp, making it the second largest refugee camp in the world.

The influx of war victims has swelled the area to the fourth largest population center in Jordan. The UN reports that ­running the camp costs nearly $1 million a day.

Now consider this: Most Syrian refugees don’t live in ­refugee camps. The masses in the Zaatari camp represent a small fraction of more than 2 million Syrians who have fled their war-torn country in the last two years. That’s nearly 10 percent of Syria’s population.

War has displaced another 7 million Syrians who remain in the country. (At least 100,000 people have died in the ­conflict.) Aid workers expect that a significant portion of the ­displaced Syrian citizens may flee the country as well.

42

It’s a massive calamity that the UN calls the world’s worst refugee crisis since the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

It’s also compounded by a stark reality: Refugees are flooding into Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq—nations with ­economic problems and sectarian tensions of their own that make hosting refugees a momentous challenge.

Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, president of the Catholic relief agency Caritas, told the Migration Policy Centre: “The refugees are Christians and Muslims. They are exhausted and desperate. … If the exodus has to continue, the situation could rapidly spin out of control.”

For now, the challenge of helping refugees falls to a range of groups like the UN and national governments. But it also falls to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) partnering with local groups, including churches closely connected to communities in need.

With winter approaching, and Syria’s war continuing, the refugee crisis shows no sign of slowing. For churches and other local groups, helping Syrians may mean learning how to offer a home to refugees who may never return to their own.

WORLD • November 16, 2013

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10/29/13 11:15 PM

T

he largest numbers of Syrian refugees have fled to neighboring Lebanon. By mid-October, the UN reported nearly 800,000 refugees living in the country, while Lebanese officials estimated the number had passed 1 million. In a small nation of 4 million people, Syrian refugees now comprise nearly 20 percent of Lebanon’s population.

Despite the huge influx, Lebanese officials have resisted forming refugee camps. The country already hosts nearly 400,000 Palestinian refugees who have lived in sprawling camps for decades. Officials—and Lebanese citizens—worry forming Syrian camps could repeat that dynamic.

The UN provides food vouchers, hygiene kits, household items, and some healthcare services to thousands of registered refugees. But substantial needs remain. The Migration Policy stark reality: A Syrian Centre reported: “Most refugees refugee with his children live in precarious conditions, with in a three-room makeshift few or no financial resources to refugee accommodation in meet their needs. The main the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon.

­ hallenges are those of access to accommodation, food, water, c sanitation, health care and security.”

When it comes to accommodations, many refugees scrounge for shelter where they can find it. Though some have enough savings to pay rent in decent apartments in larger cities, that’s created another problem: Rents are soaring, and Lebanese citizens resent the price hikes.

Some also resent refugees overwhelming already burdened public services, and they worry about competition for jobs.

Indeed, the Syrian collapse has created an economic downturn: Syria was a large market for Lebanese goods before the war, and the country’s demise has stung the Lebanese economy.

Meanwhile, the country struggles with sectarian tensions.

From their stronghold in Beirut, the group Hezbollah supports the Syrian regime. That creates tensions and fear for refugees perceived as unaligned with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Many Syrian refugees live in less urban areas, and some pay exorbitant prices for ramshackle rooms without amenities like heating or plumbing. It’s a problem repeated in other countries across the region as well.

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Inside the camp

—The writer is a physician living in Aleppo, who is not identified for security purposes

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A worker in the Middle East with the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention—who asked not to be identified for security purposes—recently visited Syrian families who had fled to a neighboring country.

“One location we visited had two stories but no doors and no windows in the 12-by-12 structure,” he wrote in an email.

“It had previously been used by animals and was in a very low-lying area, susceptible to flooding and disease. There were at least four families living there—I counted around 16-20 people, children in the midst.”

Some NGOs are searching for creative ways to meet housing needs. The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) renovates rundown apartments for refugees to live in. The arrangement: NRC makes improvements—like fixing or installing plumbing, patching holes, and rewiring electricity—if landlords allow refugees to stay in the renovated apartments rent-free for one year.

Since many landlords couldn’t afford to make such improvements, some have accepted the proposal. But at least one group recounted problems: Advocacy group Refugees International reported that an NGO doing similar work said one landlord evicted a refugee family from a renovated property after only a few months. NGOs have few options to enforce the contracts if landlords break their promises.

Dozens of other NGOs work in Lebanon, including Christian groups like Food for the Hungry. The organization delivers aid to a network of local churches through the group Lebanese Society for Educational and Social Development (LSESD), also known as Lebanese Baptist Aid.

Beirut: JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images • aleppo: Nish Nalbandian/Redux

Aleppo is still severely besieged. Where are we heading? Nobody knows. We are totally cut off: from the world, from all other Syrian cities, and even from within. We are cut off from our relatives, friends, and family members abroad. What misery is my Aleppo city! But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord.

Before the Syrian crisis, the governorate of Aleppo was home to more than 22 percent of Syria’s total population and Aleppo city was the economic capital of Syria, the center of industry, trade, and agriculture. During the heavy fighting since February 2012, opposition forces gained control over the whole northern area between Aleppo and the Turkish border, including two main official border crossings. Most of the northeastern part of the city is in the hands of opposition groups, while the southwestern neighborhoods remain under Syrian government control.

We continue to be supportive to needy families with food relief, drinking water supply, and a medical care ministry. Daily we feel overloaded with the shortage of staff and with the sounds of demand. Bread and other food commodities are major concerns to everyone. Fighting is increasingly occurring around the key supply routes, hampering the transport of goods to and within Aleppo. The international road between Aleppo and Latakia [Syria’s main port] has been cut after a main bridge was destroyed. The Aleppo-Damascus highway, a vital road supplying western Aleppo with basic commodities, is closed due to heavy fighting, with tens of deaths (mainly Christians and Armenians) and hundreds of wounded and injured victims. With all this, an estimated 4 million Syrians are unable to produce or buy enough food, and many of these are in Aleppo.

Where do we stand now? In “no-man’s-land” but covered by God’s grace! Every week families seek to register with the churches for the monthly supply of relief aid. Our church committees are working day and night, fulfilling their call and standing in the gap, extending their supporting arms and shouldering the needy families. More than 12,456 families are enrolled in the ­program, supported by more than 37 other organizations and many individuals.

All those families are lifting the supporters in their daily prayers, praising God for their attitudes and being with them in such a very hectic, gloomy, difficult period of time.

10/29/13 11:18 PM

turkey: Gregorio Borgia • map source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Conditions in Aleppo worsen, writes local doctor

Rupen Das directs the aid efforts for LSESD, and outlined the group’s efforts: They’ve provided monthly food aid to at least , families through  local churches and one Christian NGO, medical assistance to at least  people through a local Christian group, and winter items like blankets, mattresses, and stoves to , families.

The group also started a school for  Syrian refugee children in one of the local churches. For the nearly  million Syrian refugee children across the region, it’s a critical service: Many have missed schooling for months. In Lebanon, most refugee families can’t afford the private schools that comprise much of Lebanon’s educational system.

Das says the needs remain overwhelming, and that delivering relief through local churches is key to effective aid: “They are there long-term. They have the relationships and as a result have credibility.”

BEIRUT: JOSEPH EID/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • ALEPPO: NISH NALBANDIAN/REDUX

TURKEY: GREGORIO BORGIA • MAP SOURCE: UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES

OVERWHELMING: Syrian refugees pass into Turkey (above); Syrian refugee boys collect metal cans from dumpsters in Beirut (left).

I

  , NGOs work through local groups as well. A slew of Islamic groups work with needy populations in Turkey.

Christian groups like World Relief and World Vision deliver aid in Jordan. World Vision installed a water and hygiene system for , residents at one refugee camp. World Relief’s projects include training churches to offer trauma counseling for those fleeing war zones.

Though Iraq gets less attention in the Syrian crisis, nearly , Syrian refugees have poured into the nation.

Nearly , of those refugees arrived in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region over a three-day period in August.

Email: jdean@wng.org

28 SYRIA-LEBANON.indd 45

The Christian organization Samaritan’s Purse has been delivering aid in the Kurdistan region for months.

Deliveries to refugee camps have included rice, cooking oil, and other food staples. In another camp, the group has focused on projects like shoe distributions, baby kits for expectant mothers, and a sewing center to provide a means of income for vulnerable women.

Ken Isaacs, vice president of international programs for Samaritan’s Purse, says the group has worked with local churches to deliver supplies to some of the refugee camps in the area.

One field worker described a refugee who arrived at a church for food after a church member invited him: The father of five left Syria with his family five months ago, and suffers a disability in his leg and arm. He worked at a shoe factory in Syria, but hasn’t been able to find work in Iraq. He spends most days begging for money at a busy intersection to provide for his family.

A local Christian spotted him, and invited him to the church for food supplies. The father told church members he was relieved to find help.

“The church in Kurdistan is small,” says Isaacs. “But it is extremely motivated to help the refugee response.”

Southern Baptists see a similar dynamic among Christians in other parts of the region. “Like the region itself, the church has been overwhelmed with the vast need and incredible suffering of these Syrians feeling the horrors of war in their homeland,” said the Baptist worker who recently visited refugee families. “My prayer is that the church outside of the region would be challenged to step up and be there for these most needy of peoples.” A

TURKEY ,

Aleppo

LEBANON ,

 Damascus

EGYPT ,

IRAQ ,

JORDAN ,

NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD



10/29/13 11:23 PM

Legal enta

A land dispute embroils an international school that serves hundreds of missionary families in one of the most populous parts of the world

by Jill Nelson

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WORLD • November 16, 2013

28 GRACE INTL SCHOOL_THAILAND.indd 46

GIS: Tim Sh

10/29/13 10:47 AM

tanglements

I

From that need, GIS was launched in 1999 with 176 stun June 2012, Ryan and Rebecca Stowell dents. In the early days, the school rented the basement of made a life-altering decision: They left the the Sports Complex, which was designed to be the anchor family restaurant they had managed for for a new upscale development in Chiang Mai. The neighalmost two decades in Salida, Colo., and borhood, Mubaan World Club, has close to 1,000 homes, moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand, to work as and the Sports Complex included a variety of enticing missionaries with Frontier Labourers for perks—one of the largest swimming pools in the area, Christ. As Ryan settled into his duties as squash courts, archery, a fitness center, and tennis courts. manager of a new conference center where This complex has become the cornerstone of a lawsuit the Barefoot Doctors train, Rebecca helped that has entangled the school for five years. transition their two sons, 15-year-old Tyler The neighborhood association claims the developer and 12-year-old Caleb—a task made easier with the help of promised lifetime memberships to the Sports Club—much Grace International School (GIS). like a country club without a golf course—to 300 original More than 90 percent of the school’s 650 students are homeowners. But in the late 1990s, a recession hit Thailand children of Christian workers in Central and Southeast that resulted in massive repercussions to Asia. “Without Grace International School, the housing market. With numerous loans we would probably have to pack up and go outstanding, the developer rented the home,” Ryan Stowell said. basement of the facility to GIS in 1999 and But the school’s future is in jeopardy. sold the entire Sports Complex to the GIS is fighting a legal battle over the land school in 2001. and building it purchased in 2001 that The “lifetime members” are still able to could result in the school’s eviction and a enjoy the facilities for free but only during substantial financial loss. nonschool hours and to a limited degree.

The local neighborhood association Grace scaled back some of the club’s ameclaims GIS purchased the building and nities: Several of the squash courts were facilities, formerly the World Club Sports converted into classrooms, and the Complex, illegally and is suing the school archery range and restaurant no longer and two additional parties—the developer exist. and the bank that funded the transaction— Tom Matyas is president and CEO of for the rights to the facility.

Grace International Education School administrators claim the transFoundation—a nonprofit founded in 2008 action was legal and are hoping Thailand’s that raises funds for the school’s building Supreme Court will hear their case. In the campaign. He says the sale of the facility meantime, they are preparing for the grace jam: The Stowells (above); The GIS campus (left). to GIS was a blessing for homeowners in worst: If the lower court’s ruling is upheld, the neighborhood. “If Grace hadn’t come GIS may only have a short amount of time in, the Sports Complex would have been foreclosed on or to relocate the school, return the Sports Complex facilities sat for years and years,” Matyas said. “In all likelihood the to its original condition, and turn over the keys to the landowners would not have had the Sports Club anyways. complex.

Or even worse, they could possibly have had a big structure The idea for Grace International School began in the late sitting there empty and unoccupied except for all sorts of 1990s. A group of mission organizations compared notes and rats and rodents.” concluded they were losing field workers in Southeast and Problems didn’t begin for the school until 2009. The Central Asia due to a lack of quality and affordable education government in Thailand passed The Procedures for for the workers’ children. With 30 percent of the world’s Consumer Protection Act, giving consumers the right to sue population within a three-hour flight, Thailand has become for promises not delivered by the seller. On the day the law one of the most prominent missionary hubs on the globe.

GIS: Tim Shuman • Stowells: handout

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10/29/13 10:45 AM

took affect, the World Club Nittibukol, or neighborhood association, sued the developer, the bank, and GIS for full rights to the facility.

The following year, the lower court ruled in favor of the association, and GIS filed an appeal and a request to have the case moved to Bangkok. In July , Bangkok’s Appellate Court upheld the lower court’s ruling that GIS should evacuate the Sports Club facility; pay , plus interest for damages; pay court fees, title transfer fees, and approximately , in legal fees; and restore the facility to its original condition.

This was a decisive blow to the school. If the ruling is enforced, the original . million raised from mission agencies, individuals, and missionary families to purchase the land and building in  will be lost on top of the fines imposed. The school spent additional donor money on improvements to convert the Sports Complex into a school.

According to a Sept.  email addressed to GIS parents from the school’s advancement director Matt Coe, “the movable assets of the school (computers, vehicles, etc.) could be seized and auctioned with the

school’s active campaign to raise  million for a new school.

GIS purchased land three years ago and is hoping to quickly raise the . million necessary to build the middle school and high school, the age groups threatened by the eviction.

GIS officials say plans were in the works for a new school prior to the lawsuit.

A letter sent to World Club residents and GIS parents (and posted on the blog of GIS Superintendent Don Williams and wife Kathy) claims the transaction was legal and straightforward: “At that time, no questions were raised about the legality of the transaction. All the papers were properly filed in government offices to transfer ownership to GISEF.” The blog also states in a  post that the contract for lifetime memberships was “between the developer and the residents”

and GIS “assumed no responsibility for the ‘contract.’”

The founding organizations of GIS are among the largest and most-established mission organizations in the world—the Southern Baptists’ International Mission Board, The Christian and Missionary Alliance, SIL International, New Tribes, and Pioneers. I communicated with all five founding organizations, and they spoke positively about their interactions with GIS. International Mission Board Executive Vice President Clyde Meador said his organization was involved from the beginning but he does not have knowledge of funds contributed toward the building purchase.

Grace International School has  teachers and  staff members, and all foreign employees raise their own support to keep costs low. GIS parents are involved in mission work in  countries in Southeast and Central Asia, and the school boards about  students, primarily in the upper grades. Their dorms are run by a mission agency and are not jeopardized by the lawsuit, but the school’s eviction could result in a significantly longer commute for many of the school’s students.

Matyas says these sorts of challenges come with the territory: “Thailand changes constitutions and governments pretty frequently and when you live in a foreign country you have to live according to their laws.” Relationships with Thai neighbors are also important, he added: “Grace is there not just to educate kids and facilitate families being out on the field. It’s also an outreach to the community.” A

CAVEAT EMPTOR: The pool and basketball courts on the GIS campus.



WORLD • NOVEMBER 16, 2013

28 GRACE INTL SCHOOL_THAILAND.indd 48

TIM SHUMAN

proceeds being applied to the amounts outstanding under the judgment.”

GIS received some good news in September: The country’s Supreme Court issued an emergency stay of execution, postponing what could have been a November eviction. Matyas said it could take days or years for the Supreme Court to decide if it will hear the case, and the school has pinpointed a number of possible temporary locations to rent should the case be denied and the school forced to turn over the premises. However, the options are not ideal and could involve more than one site with up to an hour drive for parents to take their kids to school.

School officials have refused to answer WORLD’s questions regarding the  donor-funded purchase and whether the school made any promises to the neighborhood association when it purchased the complex, raising questions about the

Email: jnelson@wng.org

10/29/13 10:50 AM

FAITH The Bible is absolute Truth and the foundation for our Christian faith and living. BJU is committed to helping you build your faith.

That’s why we infuse a biblical philosophy into all that we do— from our academics to campus life to extracurriculars. To learn how you can build your faith at BJU, visit us at go.bju.edu/build.

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28 GRACE INTL SCHOOL_THAILAND.indd 49

10/28/13 11:08 AM

The digital revolution is helping to create a new age of Christian music

by A ngel a Lu

Illustration by Krieg Barrie

T

he strums of a guitar, the heartbeat of a kick drum fashioned out of a suitcase, and the intertwining harmony of husband-and-wife duo Jenny and Tyler Somers flood the living room in Simi Valley, Calif., where 35 people have gathered to hear them perform. During a lull in the music, indoor pet birds chirp in response and the room laughs.

Tyler walks over to the kitchen for a glass of water, and Jenny talks to the crowd, asking for song recommendations and sharing stories of their 3-month-old baby.

They sing of their marriage, Jenny’s one-eyed cat, the struggles of their Christian walk, and hymns like “See the Conqueror.”

Afterward the owners of the house invite everyone to mingle and enjoy cookies in their back porch.

This was just one of the 30 house concerts the duo Jenny & Tyler perform each year. Fans ­volunteer their homes and enjoy a dinner and concert with the ­musicians as attendees pay a $10 entrance fee.

It’s a picture of a new age in Christian music. Artists are exploring different sounds, writing more honest lyrics, and discovering new ways of growing their fan bases thanks to the digital revolution.

What was once the typical road to

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“making it”–getting signed to a major record label and relying on radio play to sell CDs–is being turned on its head with the emergence of iTunes and music sites like Spotify, Pandora, and YouTube.

For Christian artists, this means freedom from the set sound and content that has defined Christian Contemporary Music (CCM). From indie rock to electronica, country-folk to hip-hop, new bands are finding fans and speaking out about their faith. For some, success has come unexpectedly, as technology allows the rapid spread of songs written for Sunday morning services. Other artists become a jackof-all-trades, producing and promoting their own music.

Critics haven’t parsed words in describing CCM. Mark Driscoll of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church calls it “prom songs for Jesus.” Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins said on CNN, “Hey Christian rock, if you want to be good, stop copying U. U already did it.”

Dustin Kensrue, formerly of the rock band Thrice, said his biggest issue with CCM is its oftentimes sloppy, mancentered theology. “On top of all that, there’s a cheesiness to a lot of it that comes out of a sound that’s grown from the rest of culture,” he said.

In the early s, Christian radio tried an edgier format with Christian Hit Radio (CHR). In , Seth “Tower” Hurd, then , started working at a Chicago CHR station, Shine.FM, thinking he’d found a career that he’d dedicate the next  years of his life to.

But over the next decade, things started to change. The rock and hiphop-infused Christian music didn’t jive with affluent donors. Christian radio, which is funded by donations rather than ad space, realized it couldn’t make money off of the CHR format. At the same time, major secular corporations like Capitol Records bought out Christian labels, shifting the focus from missions to profits. “Artists were pushed to write songs specifically for the soccer mom or they were just dropped and had to find a new way to get music out there,” is how Hurd, and others, put it. By the end of , the CHR format officially died: Billboard stopped listing CHR charts, and Hurd was fired. Although he had been the

station’s most popular radio host, management said he wasn’t what the audience wanted.

Christian radio today has reverted to its nonoffensive stance, which means not only a lack of swearing but also staying away from theological truths that could offend the wide variety of Christians who fill their coffers.

Citizens, a worship band at Mars Hill Church, faced this issue when it tried getting its single “Made Alive” on the radio earlier this year. Kensrue, the head of the church’s record label, Mars Hill Music, said that stations turned down the upbeat indie rock song because of lyrics like “I once was dead in sin, alone and hopeless / A child of wrath I walked, condemned in darkness.”

Since then, a few stations like Air have picked up the song, and listeners have requested more play time. But for Citizens and the other bands at Mars Hill Music, radio play and selling albums were never their main goals.

“We wrote the song ‘Made Alive’ because we have an  o’clock service and we wanted a song that’s fun and dance-y and lets them just shout the gospel and the fact that by the grace of Jesus they’ve been saved,” said band leader Zach Bolen.

Mars Hill Music, which partners with Tooth & Nail Records, is made up of the worship bands at the megachurch’s  sites. They write songs for their church and later record them at a recording studio in the church office.

From the redone hymns of King’s Kaleidoscope to the roots-rock band Ghost Ship to Kensrue’s solo altrock album, each band performs in its own artistic style. A Mars Hill pastor and Kensrue vet each song to ensure it is theologically sound.

“Made Alive” is now sung at churches across the country, while Citizens’ debut album reached No.  on Billboard’s top Christian albums.

Acoustic-folk duo All Sons & Daughters also didn’t see fame and fortune as their end goal. Instead, Leslie Anne Jordan and David Alan Leonard, the worship leaders at Journey Church in Franklin, Tenn., specifically didn’t want to be part of a band that would take them away from their church family. They wanted to write songs for their church and what their church was going through: “They were songs of desperation, acknowledging of our need for God, allowing ourselves to talk about brokenness and ask questions,” Leonard said.

As they started recording EPs for their congregation, a fellow church member invited them to join Integrity Music, a label that supplies worship music to other churches. Last year All Sons & Daughters released a trio of EPs, with The Longing hitting No.  on Billboard’s top Christian albums, and Reason to Sing hitting No.  on the Top Heatseekers, which tracks new artists.

All this without any radio play; instead fans found them through social media or hearing their songs like “All the Poor and Powerless” at church.

The two are surprised about the group’s success but most excited that local worship leaders use their music.

“We come from a community of honesty, so we’re given the ability to say things others don’t have the freedom to in all

MAKING IT ON THEIR OWN: Jenny & Tyler perform at the University of Delaware.

PETER GAULTNEY

NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD

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10/30/13 9:10 AM

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WORLD • NOVEMBER 16, 2013

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gave out free songs to anyone who would give them their email addresses.

They put their music up on NoiseTrade, Spotify, and Pandora. They asked  fans to join their launch team for a new record by promoting it on social media.

In return, each fan gets an advance copy of the EP. While playing more than  shows each year around the country, they’ve been able to build relationships with their fans.

Those fans are attracted to their simple melodies and honest lyrics. “Christ has died to truly set us free: free from shame, and free to confess,” Tyler said.

“Confession translates to songwriting.”

The quality of the music is translating into unexpected listeners for several of these artists.

Kensrue’s album The Water & The Blood received positive reviews from secular publications that are familiar with his music from Thrice. A few of Jenny & Tyler’s songs were featured on the show Pretty Little Liars, including one about their experience first believing in Jesus.

Mars Hill Music’s Ghost Ship noticed a site was sending lot of traffic to their song “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” It turns out an atheist feminist blogger had linked to their song. She said she didn’t agree with the lyrics, but she couldn’t stop listening to the song because she loved the music.

A COMMUNITY OF For the first few years, HONESTY: All Sons & “It’s a crystallization of the Somerses did everyDaughters; Webb; what we’re trying to do,” thing on their own, writCitizens; Kensrue Kensrue said. “[We’re] making ing and recording their (clockwise from top). records that are musically own songs, producing excellent and the gospel is their own music, designbeing heard by people who wouldn’t ing their own website, and promoting listen to Christian radio.” A themselves. They ran Facebook ads and

were concerned about being considered part of CCM, but “then we realized the songs we were led to write were more obviously about God,” Jenny said.

Part of it was a pride issue and not wanting to be put in a box, she said, but they soon realized that they loved their Christian fans.

WEBB: THE UNION NETWORK • ALL OTHERS: HANDOUT PHOTOS

contexts,” Jordan said. “We’re excited to be able to be in this conversation in the churches.”

For those without a church platform or radio and label backing, it takes more than good songs to make a living in the music industry. Hurd said this new digital age of music isn’t necessarily an easy time for new artists, but “this is a good time for artists who want to learn how to be marketers also.”

One of the first artists to explore this brave new world was Derek Webb, a former member of the Christian band Caedmon’s Call. He left the band to start a solo career in , and caught criticism by the CCM community for his controversial song topics.

Without the support of Christian radio, he built his fan base by playing house concerts, giving away music online, and offering special promos with his albums.

He also helped start NoiseTrade, which allows listeners to download music from independent artists for free, because he found that giving away music pays off as new fans will buy tickets to concerts and future albums.

“Some of the new music business will train you to focus more on a smaller, really committed, supportive group of people rather than trying to get everyone on the planet to know about what you’re doing,” Webb told the online journal The Great Discontent. “That’s the secret of the new business–if your ego can bear it, there’s a great bluecollar living to be made as a professional musician.”

And Jenny & Tyler are following that path. The two met in college and after getting married, moved to Nashville in  to pursue their dreams of making music. At first they

Email: alu@wng.org

10/30/13 9:11 AM

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Finding freedom Christians in Nepal hope to secure new rights in upcoming elections by k a itly n speer

C

photos by Jimmy Lam/Redux

hristians may be a tiny minority in Nepal, the tiny Himalayan country nestled between China and India— making up just 1.5 percent of the country’s nearly 30 million population. Despite the conservative number put forth by official statistics and a recent ­census, church leaders in Nepal believe the number to be much higher: They say there are over 2 million Christians in Nepal, or about 8 percent. Such a minority may play an even larger role in the country’s upcoming election.

Voters are scheduled to elect a new Constituent Assembly on Nov. 19, after the first one elected in 2008 failed to deliver a constitution.

This will be the first constitution since the formation of the Democratic Republic of Nepal and the collapse of the previous monarchy in 2008.

“We believe our population is more than the report claims,” Protestant leader CB Gahatraj told Asia News in an article last year. “The problem is that during the census period, many newly converted Christians were afraid to tell their religion, and so were registered as Hindu.”

Nepal’s population is about 80 percent Hindu, and while Christians enjoy a semblance of freedom, converting to someone else’s religion is illegal. Christians hope their rights will soon be fully recognized and protected by a new constitution.

They faced persecution earlier this year when they pressed for the right to bury their dead in official ­cemeteries. Asia News reports that Christians and other religious minorities in Nepal must perform their funeral rites in forests, near rivers, away from population centers.

In 2011, members of the Christian community in Kathmandu, the capital, went on a 39-day hunger strike, and since then the Christian Federation has signed a six-point agreement calling for Christian rights, including commitments to protect church properties and the right to practice their faith. That’s progress, but Christians are skeptical they may be pawns to win votes in the upcoming election.

Tensions remain high in the weeks leading up to the election. In early October a gunman on a motorbike shot in the head a candidate for the leading Unified Marxist-Leninist party, and he was in critical condition after the incident.

More than 100 parties have fielded candidates in the Nepalese election, but observers say the fight will be between the Unified Marxist-Leninist party, the Nepali Congress, and the radical Maoists.

—Kaitlyn Speer is a World Journalism Institute intern and writer in Virginia

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WORLD • November 16, 2013

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10/28/13 11:16 AM

NEW DAY IN NEPAL? A Christian family is up before sunrise to pray and read the Bible at home; a young woman prays in front of a banner quoting Scripture; a church worker counsels homeless street kids in Kathmandu; young people study at a school training Nepalese for ministry; Christians carrying crosses march through the streets of Kathmandu; a pastor travels by truck to preach in public with the help of loudspeakers (clockwise from top).

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Sophia Lee

Saturday night on the ‘L’ Finding salt and light in the middle of revolting urban decay

>>

I grew up in Singapore, so I am always trying to learn about America. I learned much while interning for 12 weeks at The Chicago Tribune and taking a 45-minute ride on the “L” (Chicago’s nickname for its elevated public train ­system) back and forth each day.

My first impression on the L train was how polite and reserved people are. Most are neatly dressed, with ears surrounded by headphones and eyes focused on iPhones and Kindles. But that’s 9 a.m. on a weekday. Inevitably, I also had to ride the L late on a weekend. At midnight, I thought the L would be scarily empty. It turned out to be as packed as a 6 p.m. rush-hour weekday.

Bodies—sticky with sweat and leaking alcohol fumes—crammed limb against limb in the vehicle. The worst night was when the L malfunctioned and stood still for half an hour. The air ventilator shut off, and as we waited, tempers steaming, the stench of intoxicated breaths and body odor heated the compartment so much that the windows fogged up.

Before me teetered two very drunk ladies in 5-inch heels, gossiping loudly about their awful, prudish roommate. To my left, a hairy, bare-chested man, also reeking of alcohol, leered at the unaware females. To my right, a blonde started giggling hysterically, then blithely lit up a ­cigarette and sucked up all remaining oxygen in the sardine-tinned, motionless compartment.

As the L remained stationary, people started screaming and beating drunkenly on the door and

WORLD • November 16, 2013

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Anne Chalfant/Contra Costa Times/MCT

56

windows. A group of women behind me, also drunk, screamed profanities at the girl for smoking. Finally, movement. I survived by getting off at the next stop and walking home, but I’m convinced my lungs and heart aren’t the same.

Not that drunk people ride only on weekend nights. At 4 p.m. on any Cubs game day, the inebriated pack into the L again in broad daylight. I once sat in front of a young man decked in Cubs attire, drunkenly pole dancing and angering the man behind him.

More non-alcohol-induced stories: a man ­urinating in public into a plastic bag. A pale boy, clearly mentally ill, chatting gibberish into the air, concluding each loud, gasping “Aaah!” with a crunch of hard pretzels. Another mentally unwell man, laughing and galloping and hitting the side of the train like a drum set.

I watched all these scenes without knowing what to think. I tried not to stare. At times I was aghast, at others alarmed, annoyed, or amused. But these initial reactions tended to fade away after weeks of such experiences. Chicagoans seem to have seen it all, so they waste no energy reacting at all.

But here’s a scene from one Saturday night when a young married couple took the seat next to me. They were formally dressed in suit and heels, when a blind old man stumbled from one end of the compartment to the other with his walking cane. He introduced himself, begging for money with a raspy voice. People on the train edged away, looked at anything but him.

The couple next to me took one glance at each other, and the husband called out to the blind man: “Come sit with us. If you can wait a bit, we’d love to buy you something to eat.” I eavesdropped as the couple and the man conversed casually. There’s something different about this couple, and not just their kindness, I thought.

They have to be Christians. And indeed, the couple started speaking of the gospel, and inviting the old man to their church.

We were all watching. I was sitting still, soaking it all in. Across from us, two college students were watching as well. This couple wasn’t just witnessing to the old man. They were witnessing to all those who watched—and as my heart swelled, I met eyes with the students, and saw from their smiles that their hearts also were touched.

The couple got off on their stop with the blind man.

Even on a weekend night on a train in a dangerous, cosmopolitan city, God shines His moment of grace. A

Email: slee@wng.org

10/28/13 11:22 AM

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THOMSON Illinois— Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” And Napoleon said, “Imagination rules the world.”

These were men of enormous accomplishment and lauded by many as geniuses.

So, if they thought so much of the power of imagination, it must have some merit.

And if that’s the case, we as parents (and grandparents) have a real dilemma on our hands when it comes to our children’s future.

Let Me Explain…

Our children are living in a world that is increasingly bombarding them with visual imagery. And the effect of all this visual imagery (television, video games, online videos, et cetera) and all other kinds of imagebased “education” and entertainment really create a world that’s highly artificial.

And this highly artificial world, quite literally…

Shuts Down Their Imagination!

And that’s a real problem, because, as The Wall Street Journal stated in an article titled, “The Power of Magical Thinking”…

“Imagination is necessary for learning about people and events we don’t directly experience, such as history or events on the other side of the world. For young kids, it allows them to ponder the future, such as what they want to do when they grow up.”

And our school system is not helping the situation at all.

As one prominent educator put it, “… it is almost an indignity when schools are forced to stuff children full of facts without bowing to the greater good of creativity and the encouragement of imagination. It is by far the most overlooked part of a child’s education.”

So What Can We (As Parents) Do To Protect Our Children From This Force-Fed, Brain-Numbing Visual Onslaught?

That’s where a revolutionary form of audio learning (called audio theatre) comes in.

Audio theatre—just like reading, but in a more fun, entertaining and engaging way—allows children to exercise and build their imagination by letting them create their own self-generated visual images and mental movies which…

Are Then Played In The Theatre Of Their Mind!

The audio theatre format lends itself to learning and thinking. This is especially true compared to video.

And here’s why: Audio actually activates the left (or thinking) side of the brain. On the other hand, vivid visual stimulation by contrast shuts down a child’s ability to think and instead activates (through the right brain) the child’s pleasureseeking side.

This is especially true of well-done, graphicallystrong visual stimulation where video does all the creative work for the child…

Leaving NOTHING To The Imagination…And… NOTHING For The Brain To Do! Simply put, audio learning—in the audio theatre format—creates a whole different (better) type of brain chemistry.

Hi, my name is Bill Heid. I run a medium-sized technology and information publishing company in the Midwest. I am, perhaps like you, a parent (and grandparent). And, over the last decade or so I have become increasingly concerned about where our

23 GUEST COLUMN-LEE.indd 58

country (and the world) is headed in general… but specifically… as it relates to our children.

So much so, over the past couple of years I undertook a project to help counter all the negative programming our kids are being bombarded with on a daily basis… especially the mind-numbing visual programming.

Here’s what I did: I took a group of employees—including my son Nick—to London and reproduced G.A. Henty’s adventure book, Under Drake’s Flag: A Tale Of The Spanish Main in audio theatre format. I spared no expense in hiring some of the finest English actors… most of whom are in the Shakespearian theatre and movies over there. And, as a special treat, we were able to procure prominent British actor Brian Blessed as the narrator.

Brian is a friend of the Queen and quite an adventurer in his own right. He has attempted to climb Mount Everest three times (without oxygen)… and… will make another attempt next year at 77-years-old! He is also the oldest man to trek to the North Magnetic pole on foot. So, it was a real treat to have him narrate one of the greatest adventure stories ever told.

In addition, the production crew we hired was top notch… including… award-winning composer John Campbell who did the original score for C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia… which… is a classic of children’s literature that has sold over 100 million copies in 47 languages. We were very fortunate to have him score original music for this epic adventure story.

But Who Is G.A. Henty?

G.A. (George Alfred) Henty was a prolific English novelist and special correspondent (or what we now call a war correspondent).

He wrote more than 120 novels and is best known for his historical adventure stories that were written for children. Popular in the late 19th century, they have regained a resurgence of popularity today among many homeschoolers and Christians.

The reason being: Henty’s stories—through thought and deed—encourage children to cultivate and display the virtues of courage, bravery, honesty, adventure, resourcefulness, self-reliance, persistence, ambition, curiosity, compassion and more.

All of which are positive traits a child needs in this ever-changing, highly-unpredictable world we live in today.

And, the exact opposite of what they’re getting from our out-of-control, narcissistic or “me” culture being force-fed to them daily from nearly every conceivable source.

And Why Choose Henty’s Under Drake’s Flag?

Here are 6 good reasons why we chose this adventure book…

Good Reason #1: Builds Moral Character — Under Drake’s Flag is an adventure that’s more than just fun... it’s a swashbuckling adventure that helps give kids life lessons that encourage making the right choices later on in life. Plus, it truly is rip roaring entertainment.

Good Reason #2: Develops A Love Of History — Hidden in the adventure is a remarkable history lesson that’s exciting and extremely educational. It’s produced in a way that…

Brings History To Life For Your Children In An Interesting And Fun Way! Your child will soak up this story, ask questions and want to know more about history. And, to help open up and facilitate communication between you and your child... a study guide is included.

Good Reason #3: Effective Learning Methodology — In Under Drake’s Flag, the lessons come by example and in story form. We all seem to learn best when lessons are presented in story form. And as any parent or teacher knows well, direct teaching and “lecturing” are far less effective. As an example: Jesus used parables to teach for a reason. And that reason is, the lessons become extremely “sticky” when they’re about someone else.

In Drake’s adventure there are truths your child will pick up naturally and effortlessly because they are woven seamlessly into the narrative.

Good Reason #4: Develops Self-Reliance In Your Children — If you learn anything by reading G.A. Henty’s story it’s that you need to become selfreliant and able to take care of yourself if you are to get anywhere in life. Even more: If you are going to help others you must do it from a position of strength. (You can’t help someone out with money if you’re bankrupt yourself.)

In a world where the majority wants something for nothing, Henty encourages our children to have patience, perseverance… and… to go the extra mile.

Good Reason #5: Because It’s Hard To Raise Children Today — In terms of raising kids, today’s culture is a nightmare. Your child receives—literally— thousands of messages every day in all sorts of media forms encouraging them to take the low-road. Under Drake’s Flag can serve as a dose of “mental health food” in a world where toxic, “mental junk food” is the norm.

We as parents (and grandparents) are really engaged in a daily battle for the hearts and minds of our children.

Good Reason #6: Time Is Limited To “The Critical Years.” You’ve only got so much time to affect your child’s character. Kids grow up and go their own way very quickly. God has given us parents “stewardship” over our kids and, as such, expects us to “train our children up in the way that they should go.”

Listen To The First Chapter ABSOLUTELY FREE! Look, I’m running out of space here to give you all the details. So, to get the full story and listen to the first chapter of Under Drake’s Flag absolutely free, please go to the website below now:

www.HentyAlive.com

One last thing. It’s important: Probably the thing that really makes the Under Drake’s Flag audio drama “go over the top” is the study guide. We designed it for busy parents who really want to engage their children with great ideas and thought provoking discussions. (really a mini curriculum) provides the The guide, opportunity for a lot of “back and forth” conversations which will be as much fun for you as it will be for your kids.

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TIM DOMINICK/the state

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10/28/13 11:52 AM

Notebook

Lifestyle > Technology > Science > Houses of God > Sports > Money > Religion

Groomed for success >> Prison program uses horses to help inmates overcome their pasts and pursue promising futures

TIM DOMINICK/the state

by Deena C. Bouknight

Tyrone looks older than his 44 years as he strokes the muzzle of a sorrel thoroughbred towering above him in a stall at South Carolina’s Wateree River Correctional Institution.

“Blame” responds by nudging against his chest. Inmates like Tyrone (prison rules say only first names may be used) have often only seen horses on television. “Anything you can think of, I did it or thought about doing it,” he says: “Been shot at … should be dead. But I never touched a horse.”

Now Tyrone touches lots of horses daily through a program sponsored by the South Carolina Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation.

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SCTRF wants to help inmates become grooms—and in the process reduce their likelihood of returning to prison soon after they leave it.

Twice each year a dozen or so inmates from the 1,000-man prison enter the sixmonth groom certification program Second Chances. With the help of books, videos, and volunteer specialists, participants learn to feed, exercise, and provide basic training for 33 UNEXPECTED horses. They learn about COMPANIONS: tack, grooming, and veterTyrone (left) inary and dental care. They with one of the muck stalls. After passing SCTRF horses.

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Notebook > Lifestyle three levels, participants graduate from the program and earn a Groom Elite card, which makes them marketable nationwide upon release from the prison. Seven other prisons have similar Second Chances programs.

Wateree’s farm manager is a no-nonsense former undercover agent (we’re leaving out his name because he made some violent enemies). He says the horses humble the meanest, hardest men. The program is difficult and some inmates don’t graduate: “It’s not Disneyland. They have to work and have a desire to want to better themselves. I don’t tolerate any junk. We have to weed out a few, but most want to stay. They learn they can’t make the horses do what they want by intimidation.”

At first, the tall thoroughbreds terrified Tyrone. In and out of prison for drug addiction and theft, he needed to learn a wage-earning skill before his release in —and gradually he overcame his fear.

He graduated from Second Chances last year and now has coveted clearance allowing him to assist other inmates still in the program: “They’ve taught me patience more than anything else. Patience is something I didn’t have on the streets. There’s hope in me now. God’s making a way through these horses … blessing me.”

William Cox Jr., an attorney in Camden, S.C., and chairman of the board of the foundation, walks up the breezeway of the barn, pointing out inmates who hug and rub horses and speak to them as if they are children. “It’s win-win,” he says. “Animals and people are rehabilitated.”

The animals need rehabilitation because they are retired racers, past their money-



WORLD • NOVEMBER 16, 2013

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   Curious about our Constitution? Wonder how it compares with the constitutions of nearly any other country in the world?

ConstituteProject.org is a one-stop, searchable database of constitutional texts. Users can search by country or topic—the right to bear arms, for instance.

A companion website, Comparative ConstitutionsProject.org, offers tools and analysis for those involved in the work of drafting actual constitutions. —S.O.

Made in America According to the Reuters news service, a small but growing number of Chinese couples are hiring American surrogates to bear children for them. The article attributed the trend to high rates of infertility in China and limits imposed by China’s one-child policy. Although surrogacy is illegal in China, it is not illegal to hire a surrogate from abroad. Since babies born in the United States have automatic citizenship, American surrogates are desirable—and expensive.

Parents willing to pay surrogacy costs of between , and , can virtually guarantee through genetic testing a baby that meets their requirements—most often a healthy baby boy. —Susan Olasky

CONSTITUTE: HANDOUT • SURROGATE: ALY SONG/REUTERS/LANDOV

AMERICAN BABIES: Tony Jiang poses with his three children, all born to an American surrogate.

making prime. Saved from becoming dog food, or suffering abuse and neglect, these high-strung animals are bred to run. When they can no longer race, they have to learn to release energy in other ways. The care, training, and exercise they receive at Second Chances calms them.

Cox says inmates in the program work hard and learn to exercise freedom away from the main prison campus, which “serves them well on the outside.” One Second Chances graduate, Chris, scheduled to leave prison in December, knows the names of all  horses, their ages, and backgrounds. He hopes to work in the horse industry and says love for horses and work at the barn has replaced his desire for drugs. Another inmate, Aiken, plans to “help run a horse farm” when he gets out: “I’ve learned to respect life.”

Since the inmates are not allowed to ride the horses, most want to learn to ride when they get out. Many desire jobs at stables, farms, and racetracks. “Just seeing these horses every day is a good feeling,” says Tyrone. He shuts the stall door and playfully scolds Blame for trying to nudge it open. “I always liked cowboy movies growing up. Did I ever think I’d be taking care of horses? No. But they’re taking care of me, too.”

Wateree has released  Second Chances graduates since . None has returned to life behind bars. Prison officials cannot legally keep track of the jobs prisoners obtain, so they can’t say how many are working with horses now, but they believe what Winston Churchill once said: “There’s something about the outside of a horse that’s good for the inside of a man.”

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10/28/13 12:02 PM

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10/29/13 1:47 PM

Notebook > Technology

Tracking tactics

On desktops or tablets, advertisers want to know all about your website browsing habits By daniel james devine

>>

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23 TECHNOLOGY.indd 64

Safari, and Firefox have made it harder for advertisers to store socalled cookies on a computer. Cookies are pieces of code that websites and advertisers store on your computer to identify you—but they don’t work on tablets and smartphones, where a fifth of all web traffic occurs today.

Advertisers are salivating for this mobile market.

To help them reach it, Google and Microsoft are both developing methods of identifying web users without cookies. They haven’t released details about the technology, which would likely involve a digital ID for your phone or tablet, but the goal is to bring targeted ads to mobile devices.

Some companies are already bridging the gap for advertisers.

One, called Drawbridge, analyzes browsing habits and app usage on computers and mobile devices in order to guess whether they belong to the same user. If so, an advertiser could theoretically see you—via an anonymous ID—shopping for truck prices on your phone, then display the Ford ad on your home computer.

Empty bookshelves A library that opened in San Antonio in September is unique for one reason: There are no books. BiblioTech, billing itself as “the country’s first digital public library,” offers e-books only. Patrons can check out up to five of the library’s collection of 10,000 e-books at a time, downloading them to their own device or using one of the 600 e-readers available to take home. —D.J.D.

Ad hawking If you have a Google account, your picture and reviews could soon be used in online ads Google shows to web shoppers. When you rate or post your opinion about a product or business— say, the latest Mumford & Sons album or a local steakhouse—while using a Google service, such as Google+ or Google Play, your review might later appear in a sponsored ad. Imagine a friend searching Google for a local steakhouse and seeing your picture and endorsement pop up: “The wait is worth the sirloin!”

Google calls the ad placements “shared endorsements” and is rolling them out in November along with new terms of service. If you don’t want your reviews to appear in ads, you can opt out of the feature from your Google account settings. —D.J.D.

electronics: ozgurdonmaz/istock with editing by world • library: Eric Gay/ap • google ad: handout

Internet-based advertisers on your desktop computer, laptop, tablet, and smartphone would all love to get to know you. By noting what websites you visit, they hope to understand your tastes and interests—whether you drink coffee, own a cat, or are in the market for a new truck or plane ­tickets to Europe. Advertisers need to target you with highly specific ads (for cat food or Fords) in order to remain competitive in an environment already saturated with information overload. The problem is, they have a hard time figuring out who you are when you walk away from one device and begin using another.

Aiming for a solution, tech companies are developing new methods of tracking users across devices, allowing advertisers to identify you by your browsing habits or by identifiers stored on your devices. The trick is for them to do so without making you feel spied upon.

It’s an important step for the internet ad market because web browser programs like Internet Explorer,

Email: ddevine@wng.org

10/28/13 12:49 PM

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10/28/13 12:45 PM

Pills and bills

Pharmaceutical companies paid tens of thousands for a special meeting with drug regulators By daniel james devine

>>

BY INVITATION and the regulatory ONLY: Sofitel agencies meant to Lafayette Square police them. The in Washington, meetings aimed to D.C., location for the most recent create new conIMMPACT meeting. sensus standards for painkiller safety testing, and several of the group’s consensus statements have since appeared in medical research journals.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, IMMPACT (Initiative on Methods, Measurement, and Pain Assessment in Clinical Trials) influenced a new approach to safety trials—called “enriched enrollment”—to cut time and expense and tease out drug effectiveness.

Last December the FDA issued draft guidance on enriched enrollment, with

Botched shots Scientists at an October AIDS conference in Barcelona, Spain, brought a bad report about an HIV ­vaccine made by Merck, recently tested in two clinical trials. Not only did the vaccine fail to work, it appears to have made trial participants more likely to contract HIV, though it’s not clear why.

One researcher estimated the vaccine increased the risk of HIV by 41 percent. Two other HIV vaccines show early signs of effectiveness, however. —D.J.D.

66

WORLD • November 16, 2013

23 SCIENCE and HOG.indd 66

Sofitel Lafayette Square: handout • Merck: Mel Evans/ap

At annual meetings in posh hotels in Washington, D.C., beginning in 2002, two academics invited 30 or 40 federal regulators, pharmaceutical representatives, and researchers to sit down and discuss better ways to get new drugs to market.

Officials from the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health attended for free.

The price for drugmakers to attend: up to $35,000 per year.

The payments and private meetings, hosted over the past 11 years by an academic group named IMMPACT, were revealed in 400 pages of emails brought to light by a public records request.

They suggest an uncomfortably close relationship between drug companies

the agency’s deputy director for clinical science, Bob Temple, calling it a “potentially powerful” strategy. But expert reaction to enriched enrollment has been mixed: Some believe it makes new drugs appear more effective than they are.

The FDA did not organize the meetings. But at least one NIH official who attended worried they looked like a pay-to-play arrangement. In a 2003 email he said he was thinking of bringing a “brown bag” meal to the hotel to avoid eating an expensive dinner paid for by industry representatives.

In response to the revealed emails, the FDA said it was “unaware of any improprieties” regarding IMMPACT. Emails between the two professors who led the group, Robert Dworkin of the University of Rochester and Dennis Turk of the University of Washington, suggest pharmaceutical companies were well aware of the value of meeting in a closed-door session where they could potentially lobby officials. In 2003 Dworkin wrote to Turk that drug representatives were pleased with the meetings, in spite of the high attendance fees. “They are getting a huge amount for very little money (impact on FDA thinking, exposure to FDA thinking, exposure to academic opinion leaders and their expertise, journal article authorship, etc.) and they know it,” Dworkin wrote, according to a Washington Post transcript.

Dworkin and Turk received as much as $50,000 apiece for organizing each meeting. They used the money to fund their academic research. After an Eli Lilly representative complained of a $20,000 fee, Dworkin wrote, “20k is small change, and they can justify it easily if they want to be at the table.”

Available in Apple’s App Store: Download WORLD’s iPad app today

10/28/13 12:53 PM

Dave Martin/ap

Notebook > Science

Sofitel Lafayette Square: handout • Merck: Mel Evans/ap

Dave Martin/ap

Notebook > Houses of God

The Romar Beach Baptist Church in Orange Beach, Ala., held services on Oct. 6 despite declining weather as Tropical Storm Karen churned in the Gulf of Mexico.

The $7 million structure, built yards from the Gulf with reinforced concrete walls and 60-foot-deep building supports under the sand, is designed to withstand hurricanes.

N o v e m b e r 1 6 , 2 0 1 3 • W O R L D

23 SCIENCE and HOG.indd 67

67

10/28/13 12:53 PM

Notebook > Sports

More than a touchdown

>>

68

mates on the field itself is symbolic in many ways.”

Rescigno came up with the idea for the play while considering how best to honor all the seniors on the team, which includes O’Brien. O’Brien served as team manager for four years—mostly carrying water and supplies for the players and providing moral support. But Rescigno placed him, number 75, on the team’s roster for his senior year. The Yorktown team showed overwhelming support, and Poughkeepsie gladly agreed to its part in the plan.

“When we see something happen, like we saw last Friday night, we are humbled by it and we rejoice in it because we see somebody who is being lifted up,” said O’Brien’s father, Rev. Dan O’Brien of Calvary Bible Church. “It’s part of the image of God in us.”

Josiah O’Brien is deeply invested in his faith. He carries his Bible to school with him every day, listens to Christian music on his iPod, recites verses from Psalm 1, and is willing to talk about his faith with teammates and friends. He has talked to classmates about the dangers of alcohol and has, on multiple occasions, invited his coach to attend church. At church, Josiah O’Brien participates

WORLD • N o v e m b e r 1 6 , 2 0 1 3

23 SPORTS and MONEY.indd 68

‘When we see something happen, like we saw last Friday night, we are humbled by it and we rejoice in it because we see somebody who is being lifted up. It’s part of the image of God in us.’ —dan o’brien in teen ministries and activities.

“Josiah is a spiritually grounded kid who reminds you what life is all about,” Rescigno said. “And he has taught me about leadership.

After one game he told me, ‘Coach, we need to throw more and you need to yell less.’ And that’s something I’ll never forget.”

Josiah O’Brien is the youngest of four in the O’Brien family, a tight-knit group that has worked hard to support him. The young man’s passion for football developed as his two older brothers played for the high-school team. Because his brother Jonathan, who is ­currently working on a

two-year mission internship in Brazil, played the drums at their church, Josiah has also taken up percussion instruments. He plays the drums, the box drum, and the djembe, practicing for an hour or more every afternoon after school. On occasion, the church worship team invites Josiah to play with them during services.

More than 400,000 ­people live with Down syndrome in the United States.

According to a study published in 2009, almost 92 percent of women in Europe and the United States who receive a definitive prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome choose to ­terminate their pregnancy.

“God has created all of us for a purpose, and He has given each of us a role to play to bring Him glory,” Dan O’Brien said. “We know life is more than how far can you throw a football or [what] your IQ [is]. We know that life is deeper than that. This gives us the opportunity to rejoice in the fact that life is more than that.” A

handout

The game between Poughkeepsie High School and Yorktown High School was officially over when referees added 30 seconds to the clock and the two teams lined up for one final play.

The hometown team, Yorktown, snapped the ball at the 20-yard line and quickly handed it off to 18-year-old Josiah O’Brien, who had lined up at the running back position. The crowd of students and families cheered wildly as the offensive line cleared a pathway for O’Brien and as the road team’s tacklers dove to the ground—O’Brien just barely out of their grasp.

Racing ­forward to cheers of “Josiah! Josiah!” O’Brien reached the end zone for a touchdown, a momentous conclusion to the Oct. 18 game.

For O’Brien, a young man with Down syndrome, the play was a dream come true. For Yorktown coach Mike Rescigno and the entire football team, the play was an opportunity for O’Brien “to get his due.”

“I know that he lives for game day in the same exact manner that any coach or player ever has,” Rescigno told the Yorktown-Somers Patch. “The fact that he [had] the opportunity to ­contribute with his team-

Stay connected: Sign up to receive email updates at wng.org/email

10/30/13 10:29 AM

New York Stock Exchange: Richard Drew/ap • Eventide logo: handout

An inspiring young man with Down syndrome has his dream come true By ZACHARY ABATE

Notebook > Money

The new abnormal

Does anyone still care about earnings? BY WARREN COLE SMITH

>>

CREDIT

NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE: RICHARD DREW/AP • EVENTIDE LOGO: HANDOUT

T S  E Commission (SEC) requires publicly traded companies to make quarterly disclosures about their financial performance. In a purely efficient market, these data would tell us all, at the same time, how these companies are doing, and we would decide to invest or not based on that performance.

It takes companies a few days to close their books and compile these documents, so about  days after the end of every quarter we start seeing earnings reports. Traditionally, Alcoa is the first company to release reports. In general the SEC requires large publicly traded companies to report within  days from the end of the quarter. That’s about six weeks, but in reality the release of these quarterly earnings statements is sort of on a bell-curve distribution. Most companies want to report earnings as quickly as they can.

So from about Oct.  until about the end of the month, we were in earnings season. And the cycle repeats every three months.

But did anyone care? Earnings continued to slide, but the market continues to climb. Thompson Reuters says companies historically beat earnings

expectations  percent of the time.

But in the third quarter, earnings expectations were revised downward repeatedly, and the S&P  still failed to hit that  percent number. Another technical indicator—the “Negative to Positive Guidance Ratio”—tallies the forward-looking guidance made by S&P  companies. Historically, that number has been about ., but it has been above that number every quarter since mid-. The most watched

indicator, the price-to-earnings ratio, is about  for the S&P , significantly above the historical median of ..

So will the markets continue to reward mediocrity? Even in a market made increasingly inefficient by government intervention, that’s unlikely. We always see, statisticians warn, a “reversion to the mean.” With the budget crisis behind us, earnings should matter more than they have in the recent past. That said, so long as the government continues to pump  billion into the markets each month, indicators such as earnings and revenue—which should determine stock prices—will continue to have a muted effect. Which is another way of saying: Welcome to the new abnormal.

EARN OUT: Specialists confer on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Doing good and doing best Back in  we told you about the Eventide Gilead Fund as part of our coverage on Biblically Responsible Investing (“Investing by the Book,” Aug. , ). The fund was new and small, but showed promise.

Much of that promise has come to pass. On Oct.  The New York Times ranked the Eventide Gilead Fund the bestperforming mutual fund with over  million in assets for the five-year period ending Sept. , . As of that date, the fund totaled . million in assets under management (though it has jumped dramatically on news of its performance) and had generated a five-year annualized return of . percent compared with the S&P  Index return of . percent.

Will this strong performance continue? That’s impossible to say. When funds get larger, they tend to become more diverse, more conservative, and “revert to the mean” (see above). And Eventide is getting larger quickly. Since the Oct.  Times announcement, new assets have been pouring into the fund. Still, it’s hard to argue with Eventide’s performance so far. The fund makes a strong argument for Biblically Responsible Investing’s key tenet: It is possible both to do good and to do well. —W.C.S.

Email: wsmith@wng.org

23 SPORTS and MONEY.indd 69

NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD



10/28/13 1:02 PM

Notebook > Religion

Broken fellowship Former InterVarsity employee sues group over termination BY THOMAS KIDD

supervisors contacted her husband about the marriage without informing her.

Conlon’s lawyer says that IVCF policy does not categorically forbid ministry staff from getting divorced.

The lawsuit further contends that at least two male IVCF employees were retained in spite of their own divorces.

IVCF has not commented on the specifics of the case, but in a statement cited the right of religious groups to make employment decisions based on moral principles.

“InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s credibility and witness depends on its ability to hire and retain personnel who share and abide by InterVarsity’s faith commitments,” the group said. “It is deeply regrettable that a former employee has chosen to challenge this key constitutional liberty.”

The highest appeals court in France has upheld a fraud conviction against the Church of Scientology. The decision found that the group misled followers, and the court fined the organization , euros.

The ministry had asked the appellate court to overturn the  decision, saying that it violated Scientologists’ religious freedom.

The Church of Scientology called the latest verdict “an affront to justice and religious liberty” and vowed to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

The case emerged from complaints against the church in the late s. One woman alleged that Scientologists pressured her to purchase bogus products, such as an “electrometer” designed to test mental energy. Another woman said that her Scientologist employer demanded that she submit to the church’s testing and courses, and that when she declined, she lost her job.

The Church of Scientology says that it has  million members worldwide, including high profile devotees such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta. France, however, considers the group a cult rather than a formal religion. The organization has regularly faced controversy, like the public repudiation of Scientology by actress Leah Remini (The King of Queens) this summer. —T.K.

Auckland liberty New Zealand’s Human Rights Tribunal has dismissed a complaint against the Anglican Diocese of Auckland by a gay man who sought ordination as a priest. Citing feelings of “humiliation and disappointment” because of the church’s policy against ordaining noncelibate homosexuals, Eugene Sisneros filed a protest against the church through the Gay and Lesbian Clergy Anti-Discrimination Society. Sisneros has studied theology and served as an assistant at an Auckland parish.

New Zealand’s Anglican Church requires that gays and lesbians seeking ordination must be “chaste,” meaning single and celibate, but Sisneros was in an unmarried homosexual relationship. The court signaled that it was satisfied with this policy, because “being gay or lesbian is not in itself a bar to ordination.” The judgment noted that it was not the tribunal’s place “to second guess the Anglican Church as to what its doctrines and teachings should be.”

The Bishop of Auckland, Ross Bay, lauded the decision, saying that the tribunal had affirmed the autonomy of the church and helped to protect religious freedom. —T.K.



WORLD • NOVEMBER 16, 2013

23 RELIGION.indd 70

ELECTROMETER: GERO BRELOER/PICTURE-ALLIANCE/DPA/AP • INTERVARSITY: HANDOUT • ANGLICAN DIOCESE OF AUCKLAND ARMS: NZ ANGLICAN CHURCH CLERICAL DIRECTORY • BAY: JOHN SELKIRK-POOL/GETTY IMAGES

>>

A   of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) has sued the ministry for wrongful termination related to her failed marriage. Alyce Conlon alleges that IVCF fired her for getting divorced, even as the group overlooked divorces of two male employees.

Conlon started working for IVCF in , and served in the ministry’s Grand Rapids, Mich., office from  to , until supervisors released her because of her marriage troubles. In a lawsuit filed in Grand Rapids U.S. District Court, Conlon’s lawyer contends that Conlon complied with the ministry’s requirements regarding separation and divorce, including seeking marriage counseling and keeping her directors advised about efforts to reconcile with her husband.

Conlon also asserts that her IVCF

  

Email: tkidd@wng.org

10/28/13 12:38 PM

ELECTROMETER: GERO BRELOER/PICTURE-ALLIANCE/DPA/AP • INTERVARSITY: HANDOUT • ANGLICAN DIOCESE OF AUCKLAND ARMS: NZ ANGLICAN CHURCH CLERICAL DIRECTORY • BAY: JOHN SELKIRK-POOL/GETTY IMAGES

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Are you a Christian media professional looking for ways to advance your organization and your career?

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Mailbag ‘Uncommon uprising’

Oct.  A good article about yet another attempt to teach math in a “new” manner.

There is a history of this sort of thing going back to the s when young children had to learn “new math” before they were ready for it. Any third-grader should be able to recognize that  is greater than  without having to go through the exercise of comparing the numbers in each column.

—J.C. K, Lakeville, Minn.

Lucy determined that  is greater than  “just by looking” at the numbers. But many students would not “see” that . is larger than . because they don’t understand place values, something Lucy’s answer did not reflect either. Had Heather Crossin posted her question on one of the Common Core help websites she might have received such an answer and helped avoid making Common Core a political football.

—L W, St. Charles, Mo.

Forget the debate about whether the standards are good or not. Stories already abound about socialist indoctrination in curricula developed for these standards. Common Core must be resisted and defeated.

—J S, Lebanon, Ind.

The Gates Foundation spokesman said it supported Common Core because it gave disadvantaged students “high expectations to aim for.” Disadvantaged students respond to people—teachers, community mentors, even their parents—not some government standards.

—M A, Wilmington, N.C.

Send photos and letters to: mailbag@wng.org

23 MAILBAG.indd 75

As a long-time math teacher, I believe the biggest problem is that we have not forced students to learn their math facts—the addition and multiplication of integers—and so they cannot think mathematically. We need to improve our teacher training and then hold our students to a higher standard.

—A R, Langhorne, Pa.

The parents opposing Common Core are mistaken. Admittedly the state standards need refining, but teachers need to teach the processes so children can continue to find the right answers.

been around since . It has books, uniforms, achievement badges, and  summer camps.

—J G, Waxhaw, N.C.

Originally I thought gay-rights activism was about equal rights for gays.

Gradually, I began to understand that it’s about the propagation of special rights for gays. More and more, I see gay rights as an all-out attack on biblical Christianity.

—J C, Richland Center, Wis.

‘Certain about uncertainty’ Oct.  Frank Schaeffer should have paid more attention to dear old dad.

Francis Schaeffer pointed out that changes in philosophy drive changes in culture, and those influences eventually filter down to the church.

The Emergent Church is floating along on this existential undercurrent, but it cannot drift in this sea without getting lost.

—G R, Bemidji, Minn.

—H G. E, Norristown, Pa.

‘Rapid response’ Oct.  As a Boy Scout, I am happy that Trail Life USA has formed but will not be joining. Instead of viewing the Boy Scout policy change primarily as a disgusting breach of all that BSA stands for (although I do), I also see it as a new opportunity for evangelism.

Studying to find the factual certainty of Christianity did not bring me closer to Jesus. Instead, Jesus drew me close and then took me on a journey of study that led to certainty. We should join Jesus in pursuing “uncertain” people. I bet we can find some at the next Wild Goose Festival.

—P W, Elizabeth City, N.C.

—S I. T, Peyton, Colo.

Why is Trail Life trying to reinvent the wheel? Similar programs with a Christian worldview already exist.

One, Christian Service Brigade, has

This column was chock full of gems on the oxymoron that there are “absolutely no absolutes.” Forty years ago in Western North Carolina I offered up a prayer to the Creator of those hills

NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD



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and He guided me to John :: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’”

These words transformed my heart and help me be certain that there is no other Savior and Redeemer but King Jesus.

—G A. D, Farmers Branch, Texas

s and s when people were contrasting the Soviet Union with freedom in America. My wife and I feel like we are sitting in the bleachers watching the New World Order develop and prophetic Scripture unfold.

—D J, Bellingham, Wash.

‘Connect the dots’

‘Milky Way compass’

Oct.  I’m puzzled about how Cam Lee of Fight the New Drug will battle porn while staying away from “morals and values” and focusing on “science and facts,” as if sex is merely a chemical reaction. Every man I know who trumped porn addiction at some point had to move from “this is fun” and “I deserve this” to “I’m objectifying women” and “I’m being a predator.”

Oct.  You suggest that most astronomers think planetary nebulae are “no more than , years old.”

Really? A young-earth interpretation of the book of Genesis (and related passages) requires that the Earth itself, and so also planetary nebulae, is no more than , years old.

—D B. S, Deep Gap, N.C.

Human trafficking is such a huge industry and business, and that should motivate us to take action.

—S B, El Dorado Hills, Calif.

‘Crimes against the party’ Oct.  I was in high school in the

—C R, Coppell, Texas

‘Details, details’ Sept.  A great idea! I made a list of all of the issues and people identified in that issue of WORLD. I am praying about each one and plan to continue.

—R C, Hartville, Ohio

‘Against the tide’ Sept.  This was an especially emotional edition of WORLD. It had

10/28/13 2:22 PM

exciting articles about E.W. Jackson, the Yeps, the O’Maras, and the Piper interview, all strong voices for truth and justice, and then the sad and sobering remembrance of Birmingham. Jackson well summarized our situation as “a spiritual battle over vision and values.”

Health care for people of Biblical faith

—D A. T, Muncy, Pa.

‘A sober anniversary’ Sept.  Sober indeed. Absent a slowdown in the worldwide progression of Islam, Americans will have to deal with it. We refuse to come to grips with the fact that Islam already has a substantial foothold here.

—T S, Liberty Hill, Texas

‘Birmingham+50’ Sept.  This excellent article documented the history of racism and desegregation as well as some of the recent progress. But it leaves many questions about the problems that linger, such as what to do about the educational divide between blacks and whites. Talking about these things can make people uncomfortable, but we’re  years past the end of slavery and  years past . It’s time to talk frankly about the problems.

—J R, Oro Valley, Ariz.

Corrections Paula and Randy Borton founded Hope Award regional runner-up Solus Christus (“Farm and home,” Sept. , p. ).

Syria’s population includes  millionplus Christians (“Who stands with Syria’s Christians?” Oct. , p. ).

LETTERS & PHOTOS Email: mailbag@wng.org Write: WORLD Mailbag, PO Box , Asheville, NC - Please include full name and address.

Letters may be edited to yield brevity and clarity.

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Andrée Seu Peterson

Cease your sulking You do not do well to choose to engage in brooding anger

>>

KRIEG BARRIE

I      . It is a poison you mix for another and drink yourself.

It may be effective in making him miserable while he is in the room, but once he goes off to work, he will be thinking of other things and will be fine—while you are still left in your sulk.

Sulking is first of all a choice. I once asked a Christian counselor what’s the most eye-opening thing she learned in her classes. She said, “The heart is active, not passive.” Nothing done to you can cause you to sin; the sin you committed is the sin you chose.

Sulking, ignited with the kindling of frustrated desire, needs constant infusions of self-justification to stay alive. But once it blazes, you find to your horror that you no longer manage it; it manages you. This is because you had totally underestimated the spiritual dimension of sin, and thought it was just your little private snit.

God has told us how that works: “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey?”

(Romans :).

“The one” in the above sentence refers to God or the devil.

These are persons, not abstractions.

Christian, you no longer are under the authority of the one who has the whole world in his power ( John :); you have been ransomed out. Nevertheless, you can put yourself back under Satan’s authority (a kind of “reverse mortgage”) by putting yourself in agreement with his methods against God’s. This is called a “foothold” in Ephesians :, which adduces the example of the person who “lets the sun go down on her anger.” That is, she chooses to sulk rather than seek peace.

The devil exacts his first payment even as he is granting what you want. I experienced self-loathing whenever I sulked (grown-up version: “the silent treatment”). Outwardly pretending righteous indignation, I inwardly supped with all the most unsavory personages in the Bible. Cain chose sulking rather than responding to God’s overtures to turn around.

God also warned him about the spiritual dimensions

Email: aseupeterson@wng.org

23 SEU PETERSON.indd 79

of the drama he was trifling with (Genesis :). But alas, “the heart is active,” and the rest is history.

We tune to Rachel’s sulk a few mutations in: “Give me children or I shall die!” she explodes to Jacob. She is his favorite wife, but the harried patriarch finally lets her have it: “Am I in the place of God!” (Genesis :-). Unwittingly he also hints at the true target of any sulk—God. God met Jonah in his sulk and asked, “Do you do well to be angry?” (Jonah :). This is a masterful bit of counseling. God is not so much being rhetorical as offering a door into wholesome thinking. When God has asked me that same question, I have sometimes answered with a frosty: “Yes. I. Do.” My husband’s prayers have broken the back of some of my sulks.

Saul’s spirit of sulking responded to stringed music ( Samuel :).

There are spirits that cause muteness (Luke :); mute and deaf spirits (Mark :, ); spirits that cause ill will between people (Judges :); spirits of depression (Isaiah :); spirits with jurisdiction over geographical locations (Daniel :, ). Romans :-, pointedly contrasting the spirit of fear with the Holy Spirit, indicates real spiritual personalities, and cautions us not to interpret “spirit” in that modern, supercilious, anti-spiritual, psychological way people do.

Sanctification’s progress depends on knowing your enemy. A sulk is more than a mood; it is flirting with demons. Hell’s “footholds” (Ephesians :) become “strongholds” ( Corinthians :). Satan started small by putting thoughts in Judas’ head (John :), and later on moved in with his luggage (v. ).

Sulking is like giving the devil a cookie and thinking he will settle for that. But as the children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie informs us, that will not be the last of it. Next he will want milk. And in the end your whole house will be a mess. God will always interject: “Do you do well to be angry?” He already knows the right answer, but He wants you to reach that answer yourself. A

NOVEMBER 16, 2013 • WORLD



10/28/13 2:42 PM

Marvin Olasky

Force-feeding propaganda From drug crime to ‘hate crime’ to crude behavior and crude response

>>



WORLD • NOVEMBER 16, 2013

23 OLASKY.indd 80

crimes bill, he probably did not know the drug crime reality. President Barack Obama, when he signed in  the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, may not have known that Shepard’s murder was more a drug crime than a hate crime. But what did The Laramie Project lionizers of Shepard know, and when did they know it?

The next scene of our story occurred last month at the University of Mississippi, where  persons, including freshman students in a theater appreciation course, sat through a production of The Laramie Project. About  of the students were freshman football players probably taking the course after being told they could pass it easily: You just have to go sit in a theater, what could be hard about that?

Apparently, given the particular play, it was hard.

Students became restless. Two New York Times investigative reporters learned about “giggling, inappropriate coughing and burping,” and the possible use of a derogatory term for homosexuals. One -year-old, Ashley Kozich, wisely said, “It was a bunch of teenage boys being stupid.”

But no one could leave it at that. Officials came to the theater and told the athletes to apologize, but Ole Miss theater department head Rene Pulliam said they did not seem to “understand what they were apologizing for.” Then the university’s “Bias Incident Response Team” swung into action and said students who attended the play should attend an “educational session.”

With Mississippi Chancellor Dan Jones warning that disciplinary action could range from a public apology to expulsion, the students showed up and learned to keep their thoughts to themselves or— better yet—not have any negative thoughts about homosexuality in the first place. Val Ross, assistant dean of students for multicultural affairs, announced that “students will have multiple opportunities to acknowledge and celebrate LGBTQ groups on campus.”

It looks like EDHE , a freshman-level class that introduces Old Miss freshmen to college life, will also include more propaganda.

Mississippi a half-century ago struggled through racial integration. Now, administrators and many students have bought the lie that the gay rights movement is the successor to the civil rights movement—but the latter was biblical and the former is anti-biblical. The Bible teaches that the truth makes us free, and lies enslave us. A

PHILLIP WALLER/THE DAILY MISSISSIPPIAN/AP

T    about two honest gay writers, Randy Shilts and Stephen Jimenez; about a victim/perpetrator of th-century plagues, Matthew Shepard; about propagandists, kids who crudely rebel against propaganda, and those who force kids to attend re-education camp.

Randy Shilts wrote And the Band Played On (), then died of the disease he was among the first to chronicle, AIDS. Radical activists attacked fellow gay Shilts for documenting the refusal of many homosexuals to acknowledge their own responsibility for sexually promiscuous behavior. This year Jimenez, also gay, came out with The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard. He’s also under attack.

Matthew Shepard, you may remember, died  years ago in Wyoming and achieved immediate homosexual sainthood. President Bill Clinton, under attack because of his own philandering, was among the many to declare that heterosexual homophobes had crucified a kind and innocent -year-old gay guy. But journalist Jimenez, after a decade of research, argues that Shepard was a major methamphetamine dealer who had a sexual relationship with one of the attackers.

New York’s Tectonic Theater Project boosted the Shepard hagiography by creating The Laramie Project, a monologue-filled play that teachers over the past decade have pushed high-school and college students to perform: You can see the script and a bunch of homilies from it online, along with e-notes and other shortcuts for kids who try to avoid tendentious tedium.

The Book of Matt details that two Laramie residents, Shannon Shingleton and Jenny Malmskog, had spent “days and days” at drug parties frequented by both Matthew Shepard and his murderer, Aaron McKinney. Malmskog said she talked to the creators of The Laramie Project “for hours.” Shingleton said she told them “everything I knew,” including Shepard’s and McKinney’s crystal meth involvement, and was FALSIFYING? The cast of “angry at how fake” and falsifying The Laramie Project performs a dress rehearsal at the The Laramie Project is.

University of Mississippi.

When a Monica-beleaguered Clinton likened Shepard’s murder to the racist lynching of James Byrd Jr. in Texas four months earlier, and urged passage of a federal hate

Email: molasky@wng.org

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Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.), Ph.D. in Renewal studies executive or church ministry leaders; hospital, military, or prison chaplains; Accredited by the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) denominational leaders; researchers; and nonprofit ministry leaders.

M.A. in counseling*

Accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP)

Training counselors for work in public agencies; private practices; elementary, middle, and high schools; and mental health facilities.

Equipping for-profit and nonprofit executive business leaders and trainers,

Master of Business Administration (MBA) human resource managers, marketing and sales professionals, finance and

Accredited by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP)

accounting specialists, international business managers, and entrepreneurs.

M.ed. in curriculum & instruction (gifted & talented), educational leadership, elementary education, Reading specialist, special Developing K-12 teachers, principals, assistant principals, and central education, teaching english to speakers of other languages office employees in public and private schools.

Accredited by the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC)

Equipping for-profit and nonprofit executive leaders, human resource

M.A. in organizational leadership, M.A. in strategic foresight managers and trainers, leadership coaches, organizational consultants, Accredited by the Academy of Strategic and Entrepreneurial Leadership (ASEL) and leadership development and organizational change experts.

M.Div., M.A. in Practical theology, M.t.s.

PHILLIP WALLER/THE DAILY MISSISSIPPIAN/AP

Accredited by the Association of Theological Schools (ATS)

Training ministry leaders in hospital, military or workplace chaplaincy; church leadership and theological education; youth, children’s, worship, or media ministry; missions and intercultural ministry; and nonprofit

ministry leadership.

Master of Public Administration (MPA) Equipping leaders in homeland security; media; local, state, and national

Robertson School of Government is a member of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA)

government; public relations; nonprofit agencies; and teaching.

christian leadership to change the World

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Regent University is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges to award associates, baccalaureate, masters, and doctorate degrees. Contact the Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur,Georgia 30033-4097 or call 404.679.4500 for questions about the accreditation of Regent University. Regent University admits students without discrimination on the basis of race, color, disability, gender, or national or ethnic origin. *See additional notes at www.regent.edu/acad/schcou/aboutus/accreditation.htm

10/28/13 2:44 PM

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