WORLD Magazine Sept. 21, 2013 Vol. 28 No. 19

John Piper: our national insanity // Syria seethes

Septem b er 21 , 20 13

50 YEARS AFTER

THE BOMB Blacks and whites went to war in Birmingham, and those who remember see progress plus new challenges

PROTECT YOURSELF FROM AMERICA’S GREATEST THREAT THE

DEBT BOMB!

“The biggest national security threat facing our country is our national debt.” - Admiral Mike Mullen, Fmr. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff History clearly shows how many of the world’s greatest empires have fallen, not as a result of brute military force, but rather, as a result of reckless government spending and the massive accumulation of debt. The current and approaching debt of the U.S. is the largest sum in the history of the world. Renown Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, (“This Time It’s Different”), point out the historical record clearly demonstrates the “tipping point” when a nation generally passes the “point of no return” is when a nation’s debt to GDP ratio hits 90%, a figure America recently surpassed in 2010!

HOW EMPIRES FALL

SUDDEN DESTRUCTION, LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT

The U.S. does not have years to defuse the debt bomb. Harvard historian Niall Ferguson states, “the economic collapse normally comes quickly, like a thief in the night”. A massive hidden tax (in the form of higher inflation) could soon be coming as the government desperately tries to harness the debt dragon. The value of the dollar could be decimated, along with traditional retirement savings in 401K’s and IRA’s.

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Contents S e p t e m b e r 2 1 , 2 0 1 3 / VO L UME 2 8 , N UMBER 1 9

cov e r s to ry

34 Birmingham+50

Relations between blacks and whites have improved in what was once a hotbed of racist violence, but a lot of work remains f e at u r es

40 Against the tide

E.W. Jackson gained his values from his father. His race for statewide office will test whether those values can still win elections

44 Listening and leading

Christopher and Mary Anne Yep fight the contraceptive mandate and make female employees happy

48 Help on wheels

2013 Hope Award: Beltline gives kids a chance to earn a bike and learn a work ethic

dispatch es

Farm and home: Women on their way to drug rehab can begin the healing process at Solus Christus

ON THE COVER: birmingham, 1963 (from left): Walter Gadsden, 17, defying an anti-parade ordinance, is attacked by a police dog (Bill Hudson/ap); the PARENTS OF DENISE MCNAIR hold a picture of their daughter, KILLED THE DAY BEFORE IN the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church (AP); firefighters aim their hoses on civil rights demonstrators (Bill Hudson/AP)

5 News 16 Quotables 18 Quick Takes

12

revi ews

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

yeps: CHUCK BERMAN/ Chicago Tribune/ MCT/LANDOV

28

57 Lifestyle 59 Technology 60 Science 61 Houses of God 62 Sports 63 Money 64 Religion voices

40

59

visit worldmag.com for breaking news, to sign up for weekly email updates, and more

3 Joel Belz 20 Janie B. Cheaney 32 Mindy Belz 55 Sebastian Gorka 67 Mailbag 71 Andrée Seu Peterson 72 Marvin Olasky

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krieg barrie

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Joel Belz

Details, details

Often we don’t recognize a response to prayer because we forgot to pray specifically

>>

KRIEG BARRIE

“W’    answer to prayer!” exclaimed someone after a remarkable development.

“Indeed it was,” responded an overly honest friend. “Don’t you wish we had prayed about it?”

I first mentioned that exchange in this column almost  years ago. It’s a little embarrassing now to admit I still haven’t fully learned the lesson.

A sovereign God doesn’t need us, of course, to help unfold world events. He is quite capable of keeping the Middle East from total conflagration, or softening the cruelty of human traffickers in big American cities, or comforting the Chinese families of two teenage girls killed in an airliner crash in San Francisco. He is quite capable of doing all that, and more, without us.

The wonder is that God could do all that alone, but that He chooses not to. Instead, He calls on us to participate. The King of the universe invites us to sit in on His cabinet meetings. The tragedy is that we so rarely accept that invitation.

At a restaurant not so long ago, the discussion turned into a debate over which federal legislation in the last decade had done the most damage to American life. When someone proposed the DoddFrank bill of , a young participant asked bluntly: “Who is Dodd Frank?”

I was stunned that my young friend seemed totally unable to identify the so-called “Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.” But then it struck me. He had obviously never heard of the Dodd-Frank bill. I had never prayed about it. Not even once had I asked God to affect the design, the passage, the defeat, or the impact of the Dodd-Frank bill. So who was more “out of it”?

Honestly now, have you prayed even once in the last week for—oh, let’s just pick someone at random— Secretary of State John Kerry?

Email: jbelz@worldmag.com

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If ever someone needed divine guidance to walk a diplomatic tightrope, it is the U.S. secretary of state.

But who prays for John Kerry? Who prays for his advisors? Who prays specifically for John Kerry’s boss?

From its earliest days, WORLD magazine has claimed as a primary goal to help Christians not only know what’s going on in the world, but also respond to those happenings in practical terms. What can we lay folks do that’s more effective than praying for those who make the key decisions?

But most of us, even when we do pray, pray too generally. If your petition is a very broad “Give wisdom to all the world’s leaders,” you’ll probably be hard-pressed to recognize the Lord’s answer when He sends it. But if you pray that Attorney General Eric Holder will exercise some restraint in his department’s litigation against school vouchers in Louisiana, you’ll know before too long just how God has chosen to answer that specific request.

With all that in mind, let me invite you to use WORLD as a very practical and specific kind of prayer list. Put the magazine near your table, and when you thank the Lord for a meal, take another minute to pray for one news item you’ve read about in WORLD. Such a habit might well provide good mealtime conversation with your family as well.

Or, to take all this a significant step further, think about helping organize a small group that might meet during the Sunday school hour at your church. Find half a dozen or a dozen people who would enjoy discussing some of the world events reported on in WORLD—and then take God seriously by joining with each other in - minutes of specific prayer for those issues.

Either way—whether at home or in such a small group on Sunday morning—you’ll never have to worry about hearing someone say with disappointment and remorse: “What a great answer from heaven! It’s just too bad we never took time to pray about it.” A

SEPTEMBER 21, 2013 • WORLD

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9/3/13 12:54 PM

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Dispatches News > Quotables > Quick Takes

SEPT. 2: U.S. long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad, , walks to dry sand, completing her -hour swim from Cuba as she arrives in Key West, Fla., on Sept. . Nyad is the first person to swim from Cuba without a shark cage (see p. ).

ANDREW INNERARITY/REUTERS/LANDOV

SEPTEMBER 21, 2013 • WORLD

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9/4/13 10:49 AM

T h u r s d a y, A u g .  

Confined and confused

We d n e s d a y, A u g .  

Back to work Four State Department employees returned to work eight months after being put on leave for their responses to the  terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. “Clearly, things could have been done better,” a State Department spokeswoman said of the attack that killed four Americans. “[But] we have to let the facts lead where they may, and these are people with real lives and real careers, and we can’t just take action that’s not warranted against them just to make us all feel better.”

Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, who oversees the House investigation on Benghazi, called the move a charade of musical chairs in which no one is held accountable and no one misses a day on the payroll.

 

Against choice

Shipped out

The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled against Elaine Huguenin, a Christian photographer who declined to photograph a lesbian commitment ceremony because of her religious beliefs. The high court upheld a  New Mexico Human Rights Commission decision that found Huguenin discriminated against Vanessa Willock based on her sexual orientation and ordered the photographer to pay ,. in legal fees.

Huguenin’s counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom, may appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Citing the effects of Obamacare, UPS announced it will cut all employee spouses who have healthcare insurance through their own employers. The shipping company estimates the move will shave about , spouses from health insurance rolls and said  percent of other businesses are doing the same.

Company officials said they will do what it takes to take care of their employees, but they can no longer afford to provide for extra dependents.



WORLD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

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CREDIT

Acquitted Authorities in Pakistan dropped charges against the Muslim cleric suspected of framing Christian teenager Rimsha Masih for blasphemy after six out of eight witnesses withdrew their testimonies. In November of , Khalid Chishti accused Masih of burning pages of the Muslim texts—an offense punishable by death—but the -year-old was acquitted amid evidence that Chishti planted the burned pages on her.

BENGHAZI: STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • MANNING: MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES • HUGUENIN: ALLIANCE DEFENDING FREEDOM • CHISHTI: ANJUM NAVEED/AP

One day after a military judge sentenced him to  years in prison for leaking classified documents, Army private Bradley Manning made an announcement: He’s actually a female named “Chelsea” living in a male body: “Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible.”

Manning wanted the military to pay for a sex change, but the Army said it will only provide psychiatric help—not surgery or hormone therapy.

Worldmag.com: Your online source for today’s news, Christian views

9/3/13 9:15 PM

MUBARAK: AMR NABIL/AP • HASAN: BELL COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT/AP • FIRE: JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES • CYRUS: DOUG PETERS/PA/AP

Dispatches > News

S a t u r d a y, A u g .  

BENGHAZI: STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • MANNING: MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES • HUGUENIN: ALLIANCE DEFENDING FREEDOM • CHISHTI: ANJUM NAVEED/AP

MUBARAK: AMR NABIL/AP • HASAN: BELL COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT/AP • FIRE: JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES • CYRUS: DOUG PETERS/PA/AP

Disaster declared California Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in response to a massive fire burning along the edge of Yosemite National Park. The declaration eased regulations on firefighters who were allowed to use all available tools to fight the blaze that started one week earlier and grew to cover more than  square miles.

Brown also declared a state of emergency for San Francisco, which lies across the state but gets  percent of its water supply from a reservoir near Yosemite.

F r i d a y, A u g .  

Out of jail Egyptian authorities released the country’s former leader, Hosni Mubarak, , after he spent more than two years in prison without being found guilty of a crime. The aging leader awaits a retrial on charges that he was involved in killing protestors during the country’s  uprising. Until then, Egypt’s interim prime minister, Hazem el-Beblawi, placed Mubarak under house arrest.

Death warrant

Creeping along

A military panel found Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, , guilty of premeditated murder for his  shooting spree that killed  and injured  at a Texas Army post. Hasan, a Muslim, said he “switched sides” and wanted to protect other Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military panel gave Hasan the death penalty, putting him on track to be the first member of the military put to death in more than  years.

Japanese experts revealed large quantities of radioactive water are creeping toward the Pacific Ocean two and a half years after a massive earthquake crippled the Fukushima nuclear power station. The finding is potentially much more serious than the news earlier in the week that an aboveground storage tank has leaked  million tons of contaminated water.

Experts are unsure what kind of danger the radioactive water—deep below the Fukushima site—would pose to the environment if it makes it to the Pacific.

CREDIT

Gone bad Former Disney star Miley Cyrus turned in an obscene dance performance at the Video Music Awards Aug. , finishing off her reputation as a good girl gone bad. Cyrus, , performed the song “We Don’t Stop”—including its reference to drug use—with Robin Thicke in what was seen as an attempt to save the VMA’s plummeting ratings. The Parents Television Council blasted MTV for “falsely manipulating the content rating” of an adult-only show and “continuing to sexually exploit young women.”

SEPTEMBER 21,

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2013 • WORLD

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9/4/13 11:15 AM

Dispatches > News Tu e s d a y, A u g .  

Health officials in Texas linked a measles outbreak to a church  miles north of Fort Worth. A visitor to Eagle Mountain International Church who had been overseas apparently sparked the outbreak, leading to  confirmed measles cases. Most of the people affected, ranging in age from  months to  years old, had never been immunized, leading senior pastor Terri Pearsons, daughter of televangelist Kenneth Copeland, to urge members to “go in faith” and get immunized.

M o n d a y, A u g .  

Crossing lines

A UN inspection team through sniper fire finally reached the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb, five days after the Aug.  attack.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked that analysis of the samples collected at the site be expedited and promised to report findings to all members. Ahead of the UN report U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry blamed Syrian President Bashar alAssad’s government for the attacks, and said sarin gas had killed , people, including over  children. He called the attack a “moral obscenity” and promised a U.S. response. Russia, which backs the Assad regime, said military intervention would cause “catastrophic consequences” for the region (see p. ).

Justice denied An Iranian court rejected pastor Saeed Abedini’s appeal for a shortened sentence, increasing the likelihood he will serve eight years in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison.

Abedini, , is an American citizen who was arrested last year while visiting Iran to set up a government-approved orphanage. Abedini’s wife, Naghmeh, called the court’s decision “devastating” for her and her two children.

Abedini’s legal counsel said the ruling amounts to a death sentence unless the Tehran Supreme Court intervenes.

Friends with benefits Many companies are cutting healthcare benefits as Obamacare implementation arrives, but a retail giant is expanding them: Walmart will soon offer benefits to same-sex partners of employees. The retailer reportedly denied making any political or moral statement with the move, calling it “a business decision” in light of the June Supreme Court decree striking down Section  of the Defense of Marriage Act.

SYRIA: LOCAL COMMITTEE OF IRBEEN/AP • ABEDINI: HANDOUT • CHURCH: LM OTERO/AP • SIEBERT: DAVID LIVINGSTON/GETTY IMAGES

Victims receive treatment after an alleged poisonous gas attack near Damascus

Died Muriel “Mickie” Siebert, the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, died of



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cancer on Aug.  at age . Siebert started out as a trainee after she moved to New York in . She later founded the brokerage firm that bears her name and went public in  as Siebert Financial Corporation. Siebert, who never married and had no children, served from  to  as the first woman superintendent of banking for the state of New York.

WORLD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

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MARCH: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • BOOTH: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • SAN FRANCISCO CITY HALL: NOAH BERGER/AP • HEANEY: MARIO CARLINI/IGUANA PRESS/GETTY IMAGES

Outbreak

SYRIA: LOCAL COMMITTEE OF IRBEEN/AP • ABEDINI: HANDOUT • CHURCH: LM OTERO/AP • SIEBERT: DAVID LIVINGSTON/GETTY IMAGES

MARCH: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • BOOTH: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • SAN FRANCISCO CITY HALL: NOAH BERGER/AP • HEANEY: MARIO CARLINI/IGUANA PRESS/GETTY IMAGES

T h u r s d a y, A u g .  

Liberty losses

We d n e s d a y, A u g .  

Golden memories

President Obama and former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter spoke at the th anniversary celebration of the  March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Many speakers pointed to Trayvon Martin as evidence of existing racial problems: Martin, Obama, and King were all popular faces on rally paraphernalia.

Special appointment President Obama named outgoing Ethiopian ambassador Donald Booth as his third special envoy to Sudan and South Sudan. U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., said the appointment is “long overdue,” but Booth seems like a “very capable person.”

Brain gain Scientists reported they’ve found a key clue to what causes memory loss in aging adults. The findings indicate a certain gene often quits working in older adults, and it occurs in a different part of the brain from where Alzheimer’s disease develops, making the two problems unrelated. Scientists believe a protein named RbAp may treat common memory loss.

Two wins for homosexual activists meant twin losses for liberty: The IRS announced it would treat same-sex couples with marriage licenses as married for tax purposes—even if they live in states that don’t allow gay unions—and the th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld California’s controversial ban on so-called reparative therapy for minors. The th Circuit, in a - ruling, said California’s ban doesn’t infringe on the free speech rights of therapists who want to help minors overcome unwanted homosexual feelings.

Pastors can still offer conversion therapy as long as they don’t have a license.

Christians killed Islamist gunmen killed five Christians and wounded four others—including a pregnant woman—in a roadside ambush near the Nigerian city of Jos. The attackers stopped a minibus carrying members of the Church of Christ in Nations congregation, had them lie down on the side of the road, and then started shooting. All of the victims were between the ages of  and .

Died Ireland's Seamus Heaney, , one of the world's best-known poets, died Aug.  at a

CREDIT

hospital in Dublin. Heaney, who won the  Nobel Prize for literature, had the rare ability to capture both critical acclaim and best-selling attention from the public. He was also a playwright, lecturer, and translator. Presidents, prime ministers and music stars, including the band U, were among the roughly , mourners at Heaney's funeral.

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

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SEPTEMBER 21, 2013 • WORLD

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9/4/13 11:21 AM

M o n d a y, S e p t . 

Black budgets

F r i d a y, A u g .  

Not welcome North Korea rescinded its invitation for a U.S. envoy to visit imprisoned American citizen Kenneth Bae. Bob King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights, had been scheduled to travel from Tokyo to Pyongyang to seek Bae’s release.

North Korea, which blamed the U.S. for the cancellation, accused Bae, a Christian, of subversion and sentenced him in April to  years of hard labor. Bae has since lost  pounds and was hospitalized with a variety of health problems.

Down and out Disgraced San Diego Mayor Bob Filner left office one week after announcing his resignation and only nine months into a four-year term.

Filner, a former five-term Democratic congressman, faced a string of sexual harassment accusations from more than a dozen women.

Filner denied the charges but also voluntarily spent two weeks in a sex rehab facility in August. He said a “lynch mob mentality” had forced him to resign.

BAE: AHN YOUNG-JOON/AP • FILNER: GREGORY BULL/AP • BUDGET: PAUL J.RICHARDS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • TEBOW: DOUG PENSINGER/GETTY IMAGES

Government secrets are still emerging from former CIA analyst Edward Snowden’s leaks: The Washington Post revealed details of a . billion “black budget” for the  U.S. spy agencies.

The -page document showed, among other things, the National Security Agency recently launched “offensive cyber operations” against computer networks in other countries. The black budget, never before subjected to public scrutiny, has more than doubled since . The United States has spent more than  billion on intelligence since the / attacks in .

Released The New England Patriots on Aug.  cut quarterback Tim Tebow from their roster. The move came as NFL teams trimmed their rosters to  players in advance of the new season. Tebow, an outspoken Christian, has been a lightning rod for criticism due to his very public faith. The former Heisman Trophy winner struggled in the preseason, but Patriots coach Bill Belichick would not rule out a Tebow return: “I don’t know what’s going to happen here in the year, but certainly we’ve had a lot of players who’ve left here and come back here.”



WORLD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

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VERIZON: DON RYAN/AP • GOOGLE: DAMIEN MEYER/AFP/GETTY • MERKEL: ULI DECK/DPA/LANDOV • PORTUGAL: ARMANDO FRANCA/AP • POLE: MICHAEL ORRELL/EL DORADO NEWS-TIMES/AP • VODAFONE: SANG TAN/AP • FROST: AP

Dispatches > News

BAE: AHN YOUNG-JOON/AP • FILNER: GREGORY BULL/AP • BUDGET: PAUL J.RICHARDS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • TEBOW: DOUG PENSINGER/GETTY IMAGES

VERIZON: DON RYAN/AP • GOOGLE: DAMIEN MEYER/AFP/GETTY • MERKEL: ULI DECK/DPA/LANDOV • PORTUGAL: ARMANDO FRANCA/AP • POLE: MICHAEL ORRELL/EL DORADO NEWS-TIMES/AP • VODAFONE: SANG TAN/AP • FROST: AP

Sept. 20

Google faces a Sept.  deadline to amend its unified privacy policy for French users after the French government concluded in June that Google violates a local data protection law.

The potential fines may be small—just , initially—but investigations in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands could put more pressure on the company to become more transparent.

LOOKING AHEAD Sept. 22 As the

Big deals Four companies announced two communications deals: Microsoft is acquiring Nokia, once the No.  cellphone company in the United States, for  billion, and Verizon Communications reached a  billion agreement to buy Vodafone’s  percent stake in Verizon Wireless. The Verizon agreement, which ends a contentious relationship between U.S. and British companies, uses cash and stocks to create the third largest corporate deal in history.

Emmy Awards roll out tonight, the biggest snub might not be to an individual actor or network—but to an entire concept. Long the powerhouses in the Emmys, traditional broadcast networks like CBS, NBC, and ABC couldn’t even break into the Outstanding Drama category this year.

Each of the six nominees for the drama category come from cable or other nontraditional outlets.

Sept. 22 Polls show Chancellor Angela

Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union in the lead in today’s parliamentary election in Germany but also well short of the number of seats needed to form a government without a coalition. The CDU’s favorite coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party, seems to be lagging behind, indicating that Merkel’s CDU may have some difficulty.

Sept. 25 Christian students across

America will gather around their school’s flagpole this morning for public prayer. The annual gathering, known as See You at the Pole, began in .

 .    All the world’s a stage, so worldmag.com puts before you Syrian tragedy, lifestyle comedy, Obama melodrama, church pageants, dozens of one-act plays, and commentary from theater critics including Belz, Olasky, and Seu Peterson.

Sept. 23

Bailed-out Portugal today will have to fork over interest on bonds it took out as a condition of the  International Monetary Fund’s rescue package. The timing could be better: On Aug. , the nation’s top court rejected the government’s plan to save . billion by the end of the year by reducing its work force by  percent.

Died Veteran British broadcaster Sir David Frost, , died Aug.  on the Queen Elizabeth II cruise ship, where he was scheduled to speak. Frost, who became outspoken about his Christian faith in later life, interviewed nearly every U.S. president and British prime minister in office during a career that spanned more than  years. Frost is best remembered for his interviews with Richard Nixon, which induced a Nixon apology and prompted an Oscar-winning film titled Frost/Nixon.

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19 NEWS 3.indd 11

SEPTEMBER 21, 2013 • WORLD



9/4/13 11:31 AM

Dispatches > News

Crisis begets crisis

>>

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“MORAL OBSCENITY”: UN chemical weapons experts collect samples from one of the sites of an alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus (above); citizens try to identify bodies after an alleged poisonous gas attack Aug. 21 (right).

“accidents happen on a yearly basis, some fatal,” said Roosemont.

Knowing the grim history, international leaders made a concerted effort to ban all chemical weapons starting in the 1960s, culminating in the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. As of this year, 189 countries are signatories to the ban—but Syria is not one of them.

Syria’s alleged engineering of an Aug. 21 sarin gas attack the United States claims killed over 1,400 has galvanized the White House to act on behalf of rebel groups—including al-Qaeda militants— in helping the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

Secretary of State John Kerry said the Syrian government’s role was “undeniable” and “a moral obscenity” in an Aug. 30 speech setting the stage for prompt—

STRINGER/Reuters/Landov

A chemical weapon never dies.

Ask residents of Ypres, the Belgian town where Germans deployed mustard gas for the first time in July 1917: “Where I live we find up to 250 tons of artillery shells every year,” said Lionel Roosemont, owner of a tour business and a lifelong resident of Ypres, where thousands of soldiers and civilians died from chemical weapons attacks in battles from 1914-1918. The attacks—ranging from tear gas to mustard gas—choked breathing and ignited pulse rates. They sent victims into spasms of pain as their lungs discharged sometimes up to two quarts of yellow fluid per hour through their mouths, noses, and eyes before they died, usually within 48 hours of gas contact.

Army trucks to this day make circuits through Ypres—every day—to pick up recovered shells. Canisters of chlorine gas—now almost a century since they were launched—still can cause large skin blisters and other injuries.

Even with the precautionary removals,

if unilateral—U.S. military action. One day later President Barack Obama flanked Kerry, saying he had “made a second decision” and would seek congressional approval for any Syria strike.

As lawmakers on August recess scrambled to convene hearings on Capitol Hill, Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said: “The mass atrocity committed by the Assad regime in grave violation of international law requires American leadership. We have an obligation to act, not witness and watch while a humanitarian tragedy is unfolding in plain view.”

But the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in plain view began long before the Aug. 21 gas attack. Casualties in the 2½ year civil war have topped 100,000, and the number of Syrians who’ve had to flee their homes is over 8 million (from a country of 20 million).

Other mass attacks have gone ­unanswered. Brutal killings last year of parents and children near Homs, bodies found in mass graves suggesting crimes against humanity, stirred no international response. Western groups first blamed them on the Assad regime but ignored later findings that they likely were carried out by rebels.

Western leaders also were aware of prior chemical weapons use. Last December U.S. satellite imagery suggested that Syria was reactivating chemical weapons depots. In April Great Britain and France, with corroborating evidence from the United States, certified to the UN that chemical weapons attacks had taken place in Homs, Aleppo, and Damascus.

Meanwhile aid groups, global church leaders, and regional allies have asked for U.S. support short of military intervention to ease the crisis, and to prevent its destabilizing the region (Lebanon, for

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Local Committee of Arbeen/AP

With U.S. move to war, Syria’s long nightmare is provoking more misery in Syria and more questions over U.S. foreign policy By Mindy Belz

Local Committee of Arbeen/AP

STRINGER/Reuters/Landov

example, a country of 8 million, has taken in over 1 million Syrians). Yet the only move offered by the White House until August has been to aid rebel groups fighting the government.

In Aleppo, where rebels laid siege starting just over a year ago, city services have collapsed. Nearly all areas of the city under rebel control (and most majority Christian areas) have lost all phone communication, electricity, and water supplies. Few families have meat or bread, and hospitals have run out of medicine.

“It’s notable that the West has said nothing to the rebels about allowing humanitarian aid relief into these areas,” said Patrick Sookhdeo, executive director of Barnabas Fund, a British relief organization that has worked in Syria for decades. “The United States, unlike in any other crisis like this in my memory, is silent on humanitarian aid.”

Now, with five U.S. destroyers and at least two assault ships in the eastern Mediterranean on standby, U.S. action is likely to worsen the humanitarian crisis and inflame regional conflict, something residents in the regime call a moral obscenity.

Said Michael Young, opinion editor of Lebanon’s Daily Star: “Even when it involves reacting to crimes against humanity, the president’s thinking is defined by domestic considerations.

Syrians have been dying in horrific numbers, and Syria’s neighbors have endured hardship, but the president reacted only when he realized that not doing so would highlight his hypocrisy.”

Americans should not expect Syrian action to unfold like other U.S. “policing actions.” Syria’s population is 10 times Kosovo’s and its air defense network is twice the size of former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s.

Fear of a widened, prolonged conflict reminiscent of war in Iraq is only one reason U.S. allies—particularly Great Britain—have pushed against military action. Nagging questions persist about U.S. intelligence concerning the Aug. 21 gas attack.

International aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) treated over 3,600 patients in three Damascus area clinics in less than three hours on the morning of Aug. 21, but said in a later press statement it “can neither scientif-

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19 NEWS pp12-13.indd 13

ically confirm the cause of these symptoms nor establish who is responsible for the attack.” MSF reported 355 of those patients died.

Reporters Yahya Ababneh and Dale Gavlak interviewed residents of Ghouta, the Damascus suburb where the attacks took place, who told them rebels, not government forces, were responsible for the attack. The residents said rebel fighters stockpiled gas canisters in tunnels for weeks. Some Western media outlets discredited the report, but Gavlak is a veteran Associated Press reporter who’s covered previous Middle East conflict, and according to Faith McDonnell at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a strong Christian trusted by U.S. religious liberty advocates.

Syria’s Christian population, already targeted by some rebel factions, stand to suffer most from U.S. action. Once mostly protected by the Assad regime, they are increasingly targeted by jihadist rebels, and already many are left with nowhere else to turn but the borders.

Said Sookhdeo ahead of U.S. strikes: “I think we are looking at a situation of decimation of the Christian community.” A

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9/4/13 11:49 AM

Dispatches > News

Picture placement

Biola president apologizes for treatment of aggressively pro-life student By Angela Lu

>>

Following a controversy ­earlier this summer concerning the use of graphic abortion ­photos (“Blood on the Streets,” July 27), Biola University president Barry Corey wrote an open letter Aug. 20 apologizing for the way the school treated nursing student Diana Jimenez and outlining steps to further the prolife cause at Biola.

Last May, school officials told Jimenez to take down graphic abortion photos because they said it was inappropriate in such an open place. When she came back with a graphic poster a week later, school security forced her to leave and the dean of nursing banned faculty from writing Jimenez letters of recommendation.

The school’s response, caught on film and posted on YouTube, caused an uproar in the pro-life community, with groups siding with either Jimenez or

Jimenez ‘represents what Biola is about—the desire to speak up against injustices that break the heart of God.’ —Barry Corey Biola. While the Center for Bio-ethical Reform (CBR) demanded Biola change its stance or else face a picketing campaign in the fall, Corey has mostly stayed silent until the recent letter.

In it Corey first apologizes for actions that “were perceived to be heavy-handed and retaliatory” toward Jimenez, who he said “represents what Biola is about—the desire to speak up against injustices that break the heart of God.” He said that in the days following the incident, school officials have thought about what the school should have done differently, and he

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“Because of these extraordinary and unprecedented steps, we believe Biola deserves the whole-hearted support of the pro-life community,” the statement said.

They also hope that Biola and other Christian colleges would create an interdisciplinary minor in Applied Bioethics to train those going into pro-life work after college.

But Cunningham is not completely convinced. While CBR wrote on its Facebook page, “Praise God for Biola’s humble apology and commitment to taking action in the future,” Cunningham said in a recent email Corey’s promises don’t go far enough to ensure students can show abortion photos in the school’s common areas.

He also questioned why it took Corey three months to apologize.

Cunningham claims the school is making “superficial concessions to defuse public criticism” without ­granting their students rights, and is unsure whether the dispute can be resolved short of litigation.

Still, pro-life advocate Jill Stanek, who initially wrote a scathing article against the school, said, “Dr. Corey’s letter brought tears to my eyes. It is a beautiful Christian example of how to respond when error is recognized and forgiveness and repentance are sought.” A

corey: Handout • jimenez: gary fong/genesis photos

listed six steps to bring the school more in line with its pro-life principles.

He plans to discuss the reasoning behind not showing graphic images in the school newspaper, chapel services, and other venues. Echoing CBR’s Gregg Cunningham, Corey wrote that while graphic images can be disturbing, they Corey have been useful in producing social change in the past. In that vein, presenters at Biola’s pro-life chapel will use images “compassionately, ethically, and effectively.” By the end of the fall quarter, he and a team of advisers promise to create a clear policy regarding the use of graphic images on campus.

Corey also said he will ensure the school’s curriculum includes sanctity of life issues. “We desire that each ­student graduating from Biola understands and can articulate the biblical message of the sanctity of human life, so that students demonstrate these values in their own communities,” Corey wrote.

Many pro-life groups have accepted the school’s apologies and reconciled with the school. John Ensor of Passion Life Ministries, Scott Klusendorf of Life Training Institute, and Marc Newman of Speaker for Life wrote in a press release that while they were initially shocked by Biola’s actions, the school “acknowledged mistakes and expressed their desire to help craft a better policy.”

The men have been working with Biola for the past seven weeks to create a comprehensive pro-life policy.

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8/29/13 10:31 AM 9/2/13 10:44 AM

Dispatches > Quotables ‘It’s almost a state of emergency for women across India.’

GRACE YOG GYANG, , pregnant widow of Pam Gyang, a pastor killed in Jos, Nigeria, by Islamic extremists in a mass shooting Sept. .

‘Voter IDs have nothing to do with race, and they are free to anyone who needs one.’

Texas Attorney General GREG ABBOTT after the Justice Department announced it will sue the state of Texas over its voter ID law. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the intent of the  Texas law is to suppress minority voters.



WORLD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

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‘Never, ever give up.’

DIANA NYAD, , upon completing a -mile swim without a shark cage from Cuba to Florida on Sept. . The world-record swim, which she first attempted at age  in  and has tried four times since turning , took  hours.

‘I felt like slashing their throats. But anyway, God be with you.’

Evangelist BILLY GRAHAM in an April , , taped phone conversation with then-President Richard Nixon released in August for the first time by the Nixon Library. Graham was commenting on CBS News’ negative coverage of Nixon’s first major speech on Watergate.

ABBOTT: ERIC GAY/AP • BOSE: STRDEL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • GYANG MORNING STAR NEWS • NYAD: YAMIL LAGE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • GRAHAM & NIXON: HENRY BURROUGHS/AP

‘My husband is a friend, and I’m already missing him. But what can I do but thank God for his life. I pray that through his death those who killed him will get to know Jesus as their savior.’

Worldmag.com: Your online source for today’s news, Christian views

9/4/13 11:36 AM

CREDIT

RAHUL BOSE, a Bollywood actor in India, on the latest outcry over gang rape after a photojournalist in her s was attacked in Mumbai, India, on Aug.  and brutally raped by five suspects. The number of foreign female tourists coming to India during the first three months of this year reportedly fell by  percent after a widely reported December gang rape in New Delhi, in which the victim died.

CREDIT

CREDIT

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9/3/13 2:21 PM

Dispatches > Quick Takes  

Threatened by an armed assailant, the owner of a Linden, N.J., deli went medieval on the perpetrator.

On Aug. , a man wearing a blue winter coat entered Cos’s Corner Deli, brandished a gun, and demanded money from the owner.

But while the would-be thief was trying to jimmy open the register, the quick-thinking owner went for a vat of scalding hot oil placed next to the deep fat fryer and flung the liquid at the perp’s face. And when the scalding oil connected, the robber staggered, then lurched back through the front door in pain. Police notified local hospitals to be on the lookout for a man with severe face burns.

   Usually, “caught red-handed” is figurative.

Not in this case. Police in Ypsilanti, Mich., had no trouble identifying the person responsible for the fresh graffiti on the side of a local business. The -year-old suspect apprehended by police on Aug.  had the evidence on him: hands covered in red paint that matched the paint on the side of the building.



Legal analysts widely dissected a recent talk given by Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, but one throwaway line really stunned the crowd. Speaking before an audience at the Chase Theater in Providence, R.I., on Aug. , Kagan said she and other justices on the ninemember panel had played violent video games on the job. According to Kagan, some of the justices rolled up their sleeves and tried a few violent video games while deliberating on a  case in which the court was considering a ban on violent video games marketed to children. In a - decision, the court threw out the ban on First Amendment grounds—but only after picking up a set of controllers for themselves.

  He may not have the sense of sight, but Stuart Gunn of Edinburgh, Scotland, has a keen sense of speed. Gunn, , both blind and partially paralyzed, set a new world record on Aug.  by becoming the fastest blind and disabled biker. With his father riding nearby giving directions through an intercom system, Gunn opened the throttle on his motorcycle to a speed of . mph, beating the previous record for blind and disabled bikers by more than  mph. Gunn not only overcame disabilities to set the record, but bad memories. In , he crashed his motorcycle, resulting in a broken back, shattered ribs, and paralysis on the right side of his body.

ANTENNA: SUNSTOCK/ISTOCK • DELI: HANDOUT • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • HAND: TARO911/SHUTTERSTOCK • GUNN: PAUL MACNAMARA ROSS/PARRY AGENCY

  

 

WORLD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

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9/3/13 9:59 AM

TOBIN: TIJANA MARTIN/CALGARY HERALD • CORN: CLARE BECKER/THE EVENING SUN/AP • KLINGON: HANDOUT • CAT: SWNS GROUP

Time Warner Cable is serving up technology from the past to some  million customers: a free set of bunny-ear antennas for their televisions. The cable giant, which blacked out CBS programming beginning on Aug.  during negotiations with the network, sent the message with the antenna offer in a late-night email to customers dated Aug. . The dispute with CBS rises from the cable provider’s unwillingness to pay a -per-customer carriage fee. Under the old contract, Time Warner paid a dollar or less per customer to carry CBS programming. According to the company email, affected users in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Milwaukee, and Green Bay, Wis., may pick up a free indoor antenna at customer service centers in those cities or receive a  voucher to purchase a set of bunny ears at Best Buy.

All ears In all the years Ben Klunk, 81, has farmed he’s never seen anything like the ear of sweet corn he snagged on Aug. 7. The farmer from Hanover, Pa., plucked a four-headed ear, telling the Hanover Evening Sun, “I’ve never been too lucky. … This is a once in a lifetime ear of corn.” Klunk said he has no plans to eat the unique ear.

Instead he showed it to his wife, then placed it in the refrigerator.

Tobin: Tijana Martin/Calgary Herald • corn: Clare Becker/The Evening Sun/ap • Klingon: handout • cat: SWNS Group

Antenna: sunstock/istock • Deli: handout • illustration: krieg barrie • hand: taro911/shutterstock • gunn: Paul Macnamara Ross/Parry Agency

Extra special delivery Some postal workers brave snow, sleet, and rain to deliver the mail, but one Canadian postal worker braves something worse. After a threeweek ­suspension of the route because of safety concerns, Calgary postal carrier Rick Tobin began delivering mail again on Aug. 19, all the while fending off angry hawks flying overhead.

Residents in the Lake Bonavista neighborhood are getting used to Tobin making his appointed rounds holding letters in one arm and brandishing a tennis racquet with the other. According to Tobin, one territorial raptor has targeted him specifically, circling overhead before dive-bombing him or his colleague who acts as a spotter. Residents say the birds leave locals alone, but target men in uniform.

Trek talk There’s no French. No Arabic. And no German. But if you speak Klingon, the Illinois Department of Employment Security has a translation for you. The department website where unemployed Illinois residents file for welfare benefits features translations of the site’s contents into five languages: Spanish, Polish, Maltese, Russian, and Klingon, the pseudo-language created for the Star Trek television and film franchise. According to department officials, the translations are a free service of Microsoft translation services and cost taxpayers nothing. “We kept it up because every now and then, people notice it, and whenever people are drawn to our website to see the benefits that we offer, that’s a good thing,” ­spokesman Greg Rivera told the Chicago Tribune.

Cat bandit Some cats bring home birds. Others bring home lizards.

Richard and Sophie Windsor’s cat brings home ladies’ underwear. The Bristol, U.K., couple were horrified when they discovered their 2-year-old tabby named Norris had turned into a nocturnal cat burglar, breaking into neighbors’ houses and bringing home rags, clothes, and assorted underwear. In August, the Windsors penned an apologetic letter to neighbors: “This is a slightly embarrassing note to have to write but during his travels throughout the neighborhood, our cat, Norris, has brought back an assortment of items,” the letter reads. “Unlike most cats, Norris isn’t too interested in the local wildlife but has taken to straight up theft.” The letter invited neighbors to come by and check through Norris’s cache for any missing items.

Worldmag.com: Your online source for today’s news, Christian views

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Janie B. Cheaney

Alabaster cities A lot went into building American cities, but false visions can destroy them

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WORLD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

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and the utility lines hum and the potholes get fixed overnight.

Such a metropolis, from similar humble beginnings, was Detroit.

Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions (Lamentations :).

Who’s to blame for a great city’s fall? A lot of finger-pointing goes on, but it comes down to false and deceptive visions. For example: Padded accounts and kickbacks are just another way of doing business.

Retirees can be paid as much or more than the fully employed. The good times will roll on like a GTO, and if they don’t, a flashy media campaign will prime the prosperity pump again.

Some corruption comes with the territory; the taint of human nature. Party machines and political bosses become the stuff of legend. But every lie scoops a little more substance from a city’s heart until it’s almost hollow. Just as growing townships reach critical mass, declining ones pass the point of no return. A funky new Detroit may bubble up within the ruins, but Motor City is gone forever.

“Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” … “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Mark :-).

Might there be something of Jerusalem in every American city? Every skyline boasts a steeple and a cross, a hopeful shadow cast upon daily endeavor.

“America the Beautiful” isn’t just about purple mountains and amber grain, but also human striving: “Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears … America! America! God mend thine every flaw; Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.”

These wonderful buildings didn’t rise on their own—but they’ll fall on their own, when and if the invisible cords of law and self-control can no longer hold them up. A

STOCKBYTE/GETTY IMAGES

“N    .” Two guys occupy the seat in front of me, and as the bus pulls out of the Greyhound station I catch their conversation: “Uh-huh.” “Never been here before. Did you see that thing—that arch?”

“Yeah, I think St. Louis is kind of famous for that.”

Man-made canyons flash by. Busch Stadium, home of the Cardinals, hipped right up against the interstate; in the near distance, historic cathedrals and the mighty Mississippi. The morning light on a clear day shows St. Louis off to fine advantage.

Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and wandering all the precious things that were hers from days of old (Lamentations :).

St. Louis was named for France’s crusader king, whose equestrian statue, holding high the cross, greets visitors to a world-class art museum. To my in-laws, St. Louis is “the city,” the special-night destination for a concert or a game, or for an everyday job before the Chrysler plant closed down. As the bus heads west I wonder what else might be closing down.

Her gates have sunk into the ground … the law is no more and her prophets find no vision from the Lord (Lamentations :).

Great cities string out like pearls along I-; the bus had stopped at each one. Indianapolis, encountered at night, is a glittering confection wrapped in highway interchanges. Columbus spreads out sparkling greenspaces, bustling businesses, orderly traffic.

Pittsburgh exuberantly embraces its geography—those mountains, those rivers, those springing bridges, that ballpark! Mean streets thread the clean marble surfaces, crime lurks in dark alleys and grimy corners, but to a traveler passing through, these bold strokes of interchange and skyscraper are the very picture of confidence.

How does it happen?

Pittsburgh was a lonely frontier outpost, St. Louis a smoky French trading village, Indianapolis and Columbus were necessary exchange centers for the farmers and town-builders of Middle America. People are drawn together, and with the right conditions—a river, a railroad, a convergence of trails—cities grow.

Somehow everybody deals in: contributes a song, a saying, a landmark restaurant, or just a sturdy back.

In time, neighbors with diverse backgrounds and futures, largely unknown to each other, build huge multifaceted operations where the trash is picked up

Email: jcheaney@worldmag.com

9/2/13 10:49 AM

Stockbyte/getty images

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9/3/13 3:10 PM

CREDIT

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9/2/13 10:51 AM

Reviews

Movies & TV > Books > Q&A > Music

Marvelous mystery TELEVISION: Sharp writing and superb acting may make Broadchurch the next big British TV import

by Megan Basham

BBC

>>

Ever since Downton Abbey became a word-of-mouth hit, the television industry has been on the lookout for the next British import to strike a chord with American audiences. Though on the surface it bears little resemblance to everyone’s favorite period drama, ITV’s modern murder mystery, Broadchurch, seems poised to fit the bill.

Like Downton, Broadchurch, which BBC America began airing here on Aug. 7, debuted to record-breaking ratings in the U.K., going on to become a national phenomenon. Also like Downton, the show has received lavish praise from U.S. critics. At Metacritc.

Email: mbasham@worldmag.com

19 MOVIES & TV.indd 23

com, a site that averages television reviews from major news outlets, Broadchurch earns a 91 out of 100 and is currently their highest-rated new series (Downton’s first season scored a 92). And while the setting and storylines are nothing alike, one further similarity Downton and Broadchurch share—sharply written characters ­coupled with phenomenal acting.

Though there isn’t a bad performance in the bunch, particularly impressive are leads Olivia Colman and David Tennant as a pair of detectives charged with finding the killer of an 11-yearold boy in a small, coastal town. As a local, Ellie can’t help her reluctance to

believe any of her neighbors could be guilty of this heinous crime. As an ­outsider and jaded veteran, Alec can’t help feeling suspicious of everyone he meets, however innocent they might seem.

Without question, their investigation delves into the darkest elements of fallen human nature. Yet by the standards of other currently trendy dramas like Homeland, Breaking Bad, or Under import the Dome, with the value: Tennant as exception of profanity, Alec Hardy Broadchurch’s content and Simone is mild, featuring little McAullay as violence and only one Becca Fisher.

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

to reconsider how we view such stories.

At times, the revelations Ellie and Alec turn up are painful—gut-wrenching even—to watch, but they also exemplify the increasingly mundane evil we encounter every day. And even on this front, Broadchurch excels, not merely painting our common despair, but also offering a glimpse of hope. A minor, silly subplot involving a psychic notwithstanding, Christian faith is treated with more than respect; it’s treated with seriousness.

The fledgling town reverend, though a suspect like everyone else, is the person the grieving parents turn to for wisdom and comfort. Most shocking of all for mainstream entertainment, after some initial flailing, he actually manages to supply it.

Fox has already determined the potential of Broadchurch with U.S. audiences, entering into a deal to produce an American adaptation for the - television season. Here’s hoping the network sticks to the British version’s reflective, restrained style. In case it doesn’t, for those who can overlook the language and are willing to engage with distressing-buttruthful subject matter, I recommend the original as a rare, only somewhat tarnished gem in a garbage-littered landscape. A

WORLD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

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Foyle’s War   

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I ’    to discover why British mystery series Foyle’s War has made it to an eighth season on PBS’s Masterpiece Theater. For a decade now, creator Anthony Horowitz has combined a novel slant on World War II with likeable characters, clean story lines, and minimal on-screen violence. Set in the British town of Hastings, Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchens) is a World War I veteran too old to join the ranks fighting Hitler. Instead, Foyle joins his driver, Sam (Honeysuckle Weeks), in the war at home—tracking down old-fashioned thieves, murderers, and the occasional spy.

In Season Eight beginning this month, however, a new war is on the horizon. In the wake of Hiroshima, a new threat to peace and security looms: Soviet Russia. Against the backdrop of the Cold War, Foyle finds himself drawn into the services of MI-. When Sam—now married and hoping to start a family despite her work as a secretary for a renowned physicist—is implicated in a spy ring, Foyle agrees to investigate. Before long, the duo is back in pursuit of law and justice, and they must navigate a new world of spies and political intrigue to, among other things, rescue missing persons and bring Nazi war criminals to justice.

Like many British productions, the series dwells on Guantanamo-like prisons as a unique failure of the West, toeing the politically correct line on homosexuality, and uncritically presenting the seeds of nationalized healthcare. And in this season particularly, our heroes too often resort to lying and duplicity to see right triumph.

But the most enjoyable elements of the show remain intact. Simple plots provide storylines and drama that feel as gripping as or more so than previous incarnations. Nefarious characters are fully developed, without denying their villainy. And a subplot between Sam and her husband offers a window on the genesis of the baby-boomer generation.

All of which may make the Cold War Mr. Foyle’s best war thus far.

ELEVENTH HOUR FILMS/ACORN MEDIA

brief, nonexplicit bedroom scene in its first season.

Though the show centers on the lives of some decidedly unsavory characters, viewers are rarely subjected to depictions of their unsavory behavior. One episode of the eight-part whodunit, for example, reveals that a married character is having an affair. Yet the only evidence we see of it is a kiss. Instead, Broadchurch invests its screen time on the consequences of the man’s actions. Confronted with his wife’s heartbreak and his daughter’s disrespect, he comes to see that what seemed like valid justifications for cheating were really the cheapest, most contemptible kind of selfishness.

Far from being less gripping for its reserve, Broadchurch’s constant focus on the fallout of sinful choices rather than sin itself makes it far more true-tolife than many “gritty” dramas praised for their realism. After all, the pain of wickedness usually lasts exponentially longer than the pleasure, though TV producers tend to show the inverse.

This isn’t to suggest that Broadchurch skimps on the details. The show operates as a sort of firsthand, behind-the-scenes look at the tabloid cases that dominate our news cycles. From the devastated family, to the journalists who sensationalize the crimes, to the public who sit in stonethrowing judgment before all the facts are revealed, the show puts hearts and faces to an all too familiar spectacle and challenges us

TELEVISION

See all our movie reviews at worldmag.com/movies

9/4/13 9:55 AM

THE MARCH: NARA/SMOKING DOGS FILMS • GETAWAY: WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Reviews > Movies & TV

DOCUMENTARY

The March

by Alicia M. Cohn

>>

Eleventh Hour Films/Acorn Media

The March: NARA/Smoking Dogs Films • Getaway: Warner Bros. Pictures

It’s difficult to dramatize the process of organization, even organization of an event as historic and important as the 1963 March on Washington. But PBS tried with The March.

The hour-long documentary begins with the almost unthinkable police-led violence in Birmingham, Ala., and ends with March speaker and now U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., ­celebrating progress made since 1963. The perspective is limited, making it easy to dismiss the events of the past as the past.

But this year marks 50 since the March on Washington, and the civil rights movement is invoked more frequently than ever. Current movements, from gay rights to Occupy Wall Street, use it as a comparison point, and understanding the success of the March on Washington is probably the only way to evaluate their claims.

The March on Washington is remembered now as a ­gathering, but the real accomplishment was the effort it took

MOVIE

Getaway

by Michael Leaser

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Any B-level chase movie worth its celluloid has several essential ingredients. Take Getaway. Morally ambiguous yet sympathetic protagonist? Check. Pretty girl? Check. Fast cars? Check. Bad guy with foreign accent? Check. Deep philosophical and inspiring message? Uh … wrong list.

Getaway does not ask you to engage your brain fully, and it is

to plan it. The March includes much of that behind-the-scenes work, including ­several threats to its success that could have derailed or obliterated the event.

Unfortunately, the editing does not always make the solutions clear.

Denzel Washington provides neutral narration, allowing old footage of organizers and new interviews with people involved to stand out as the real drama.

The stakes seem realistically high during much of the film’s dissection of the event. But then someone like Oprah, who was 9 at the time, appears on screen crediting her accomplishments to the 10 hours that 200,000 people crowded the National Mall. Once again it becomes easy to forget that the March was the most visible event of the civil rights movement, but a symbol of change, not change itself.

And perhaps that is why today’s frequent rallies are ­passionate but often haphazard and a flicker on the national radar.

­ robably best not to. Otherwise, you p may find yourself vigorously nodding in agreement when the hero spouts lines like “I can’t believe that worked!”

That being said, the plight of an ­ex-race car driver (Ethan Hawke) ­stealing a souped-up Shelby Super Snake Mustang and performing ­several illegal acts at the behest of a villain (Jon Voight) who is holding the driver’s wife (Rebecca Budig) captive is at least somewhat compelling.

Helping out in that regard is ­veteran indie actor Hawke’s strong,

emotionally nuanced performance, one of the film’s few elements to rise above its genre. Hawke juggles fairly effectively the driver’s urgent need to save his wife with the safety of a young girl (Selena Gomez) forced to ride with him and the increasingly challenging legal and ethical dilemmas posed by his tormentor.

As for co-star Gomez’s unnamed, sharp-tongued character, well, at least she’s not terrible. Neither she nor Hawke have very good lines to work with. In her case, many of those lines include mild cursing, along with a rude gesture, helping the film earn its PG-13 rating and, sadly enough, ­keeping her image in the ranks of the classier ­former Disney starlets secure.

Getaway features some exceptional race-related camerawork, including one particularly impressive continuous shot, but falls victim at times to some sloppy editing. Who knew it only took a split second for the sun to rise in Bulgaria?

The film hits the right emotional touch points, but its frenetic pace and proliferation of car wrecks and explosions barely give the viewer time to think, which is probably intentional.

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9/4/13 9:56 AM

Reviews > Books

Gospel dignity

Helping the poor get off the poverty treadmill

BY MARVIN OLASKY

WORLD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

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Right before the fall James T. Patterson’s The Eve of Destruction: How  Transformed America (Basic, ) is a well-written, detailed history of a year that still bedevils us culturally and economically. Medicare and Medicaid are busting budgets now, but Lyndon Johnson was cavalier about both costs and constitutionality. He told legislators, “I’ll take care of [the money],” and he remarked that when some Texans once told an old judge “that he might have abused the Constitution,” the judge said, “What’s the Constitution between friends?” —M.O.

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from northern Argentina replied that ‘it had enabled them to look the white person firmly in the eye.’ Time and again the gospel has brought about social and ecoChester nomic changes in communities by giving the poor dignity and direction.”

Chester occasionally falls back into development clichés. For example, he writes that “what the USA spends on cosmetics would provide basic education for all. What Europe spends on ice cream would provide water and sanitation for all.” True, but the problem is that those amounts, if sent to most foreign countries, would go into the pockets of politicians and generals. Some would trickle down to ordinary folks with animist superstitions that render them unwilling to change customs for fear of offending local gods.

But most of Good News to the Poor is sound, particularly when Chester stresses that “time is more important than money in social involvement. That is because social involvement is about

Email: molasky@worldmag.com

9/2/13 11:11 AM

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T C’ Good News to the Poor (Crossway, ) is good news for readers thinking through the relationship of evangelism to social action. Chester cogently argues that the two are not “corresponding activities of equal impact. … The adage often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, that ‘we should preach always, sometimes using words,’ will not do. …

[W]ithout the communication of the gospel message, social action … points in the wrong direction.”

Chester goes on to explain why: “If all we do are good works among people then we point to ourselves and our charitable acts.

People will think well of us, but not of Jesus Christ.

We may even convey the message that salvation is achieved by good works.

Or we may convey the message that what matters most is economic and social betterment.

We must not do social action without evangelism.”

He also writes that the latter is true: “We cannot treat people in isolation from their context. Evangelism alone … makes no sense at all when working among the poor. … Evangelism and social action should be viewed as distinct, but inseparable activities in our mission to the poor in which proclamation is central. … Broken people know they are broken. What they struggle to grasp is that God welcomes people like them.”

That message of grace is huge. As Chester writes, “by making them children of God, the gospel gives the poor a dignity that the world denies them.

Asked what the gospel had done for his people, an indigenous Christian leader

changing people, attitudes and structures rather than providing goods and services.” He offers a real-life example: “A church has contact with a refugee—a single parent with nine children. You can see that she needs a washing machine. You turn up one day with one. That would be a lovely surprise.

But it may not be what she needs most.

You have not involved her in the decision making process. … She is simply the passive recipient of your charity.

She becomes dependent on you.”

What’s the alternative? An emphasis on development rather than welfare.

Chester writes, “Welfare is an approach that involves giving something to the poor like goods, clothing or skills.

Development involves working with the poor to help them define their problems and find their own solutions to them. Welfare has a role, both in emergency situations and as a way of building relationships with a community. But if we never move beyond welfare we … reinforce the hopelessness, powerlessness, and lack of dignity of the poor.”

NOTABLE BOOKS

SPOTLIGHT

Four children’s nonfiction books > reviewed by  . 

Albert Einstein and Relativity for Kids Jerome Pohlen “Science” does not occur in a vacuum; it’s the product of human minds and ambitions, tossed into a whirlwind of human activity. The “For Kids” series published by Chicago Review illustrates this principle with a running account of the scientist’s life and times, accompanied by activities and thought experiments that make it a bit easier to follow Einstein’s reasoning. Complex ideas are as clear for the target age group (fourth through sixth grade) as they can possibly be. The narrative doesn’t shy away from Einstein’s personal tangles, such as his divorce from his first wife, but doesn’t go into detail—and it puts Einstein’s famous comment about God playing dice in its proper context.

How to Read Literature Like a Professor for Kids Thomas C. Foster Thomas Foster follows up his popular literature book for adults with this slimmer version. His chatty style is appropriate for seventh and eighth graders who are wondering why they have to know about any Homer other than Simpson, but he doesn’t talk down to them. He may open their eyes with his evaluation of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas as a quest narrative, or with his definition of irony (when “what you think is going to happen, doesn’t”). Every student must learn to explore literature for himself, but travel guides like this can be helpful—although parents should be aware of brief discussions that link sex with death and with vampires.

Secular book reviewers are rapturous about Rapture Practice, the coming-of-age memoir by Hartzler, oldest son of a Aaron Hartzler fundamentalist Baptist preacher from Kansas City. After a happy childhood, young Aaron discovers during his teen years that () he can’t relate to his father’s God, () he can’t help loving forbidden music and

How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare Ken Ludwig Parents who are wondering how to pass on an appreciation for Shakespeare should peruse this book, even—or especially—if they possess little appreciation themselves. The author, himself a playwright, makes up any lack of enthusiasm with his own. He presents here the equivalent of a crash course in Bardophilia: a guided tour of the plays, tips for memorization (“the key to everything”), suggested passages to memorize, a list of favorite resources, and personal anecdotes and reflections. Rather than a series of lesson plans, it’s a rambling journey through one man’s experience that may, in the end, be the best way to “teach” Shakespeare: a passion caught rather than taught.

movies, () he’s probably gay, and () he can no longer lie about all these things. What sets Rapture Practice apart from similar leaving-the-faith accounts is the lack of bitterness.

Hartzler fondly recalls certain aspects of his evangelical

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Children’s Atlas of God’s World Craig Froman This oversize (¾" x "), full-color, handsomely bound volume is not comprehensive, in the sense that not every nation on earth receives equal attention. Such prioritizing indicates that the world actually means something besides a glorious hodgepodge.

Beginning with the perspective of Genesis :, the text spotlights Canada, Mexico, and the USA, then goes on to selected nations—six each in Europe and Asia, two in South America, and three in Africa.

An overview for each continent lists all the countries and explains the outstanding geographical features and points of interest, especially relating to Christian history. Though the text sometimes transitions awkwardly between paragraphs, the presentation is attractive, informative, and eminently browse-worthy.

To see more book news and reviews, go to worldmag.com/books

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upbringing and fully credits his parents’ sincerity and love for him.

The final pages are unexpectedly touching—and heartrending. It’s every Christian parent’s nightmare: What if my child rejects the Lord, after all my efforts to nurture faith? Hartzler’s memoir offers them no comfort, but may raise questions about the mystery of faith and sovereignty of God that are worth pondering. —J.C.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2013 • WORLD

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9/2/13 11:17 AM

Reviews > Q&A

Our national insanity The future for America is bleak, says John Piper, “unless God moves like a tornado through this land” to wake up people

By Marvin Olasky

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When you read the last five chapters of Judges with its refrain about having no king in Israel, so everyone does what is right in his own eyes: Does that seem like modern America?

“Everyone does what is right in his own eyes” sounds very much like modern skepticism or relativism or postmodernism, in that we have abandoned absolutes and right and wrong.

Without faithful representatives of King Jesus in the

churches, people will do their own thing.

What do you think the United States will look like in 10 or 20 years? I’m not optimistic, but I do believe in the absolute sovereignty of God who could be pleased in the eleventh hour of our ­self-destruction to move like a tornado through this land and cause people to wake up and say, “We’ve been insane.” It’s insane to kill babies. It’s insane to define marriage as two men

having long-term sex with each other. God could move through our culture and cause people to say, “We’ve been in a fog, under a darkness, so that we couldn’t see you don’t kill babies and you don’t call that marriage.” That could happen. I will pray until I’m dead that it will happen.

If it doesn’t? I will reflect on Romans 1 where Paul ­pro­jects the implications of people living against nature: receiving the penalty in their

desiringGod.org

We rarely run an interview in two ­separate issues, but it’s worth making an exception for theologian John Piper, who this spring concluded 33 years in the pulpit of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. He has authored 50-plus books and has many more in mind ­during his nonretirement retirement. I interviewed him in front of students at Bethlehem College and Seminary; we ran the first part in our Aug. 24 issue.

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said a woman who wants a baby not to exist has the right to make it not exist, and you have the right to call “marriage” whatever you want to call it.

Then there are no philosophical roadblocks to taking lives at lots of other times and ­calling lots of other things marriage.

It’s extremely politically incorrect for you to say these things. Political correctness means there is a way to talk that will prove least offensive to the cultural elite, or whoever you happen to be talking to with the authority and power to shut you down. I know Jesus hates that because Matthew told the

One of those most politically incorrect things today is capital punishment: How do you analyze the debate biblically? The only warrant against capital punishment from a biblical standpoint is that your country has gotten to a point where you cannot apply the law justly. If you ­discern for whatever reason that 10 black men and 10 white men have committed similar crimes and maybe these black men are put to death and none of these white men are, you might have a situation where you’d say, “We’re not going to kill anymore because something is deeply, deeply wrong with the system.”

­ iscern where the greatest d need is, and partly because you can’t know what the ripple effect of your life is going to be whenever you invest it somewhere else. What if you invest your life at Point A and the effect was that a person was converted who had a greater impact on Point C than if you went to Point C? I tried to ­figure this out for my life. I never could. I’m just not God. How should Bethlehem College and Seminary ­students discern where they should go and what they should do? We learn about missions and the great need of unreached peoples.

We learn about the broken-

‘We are going to wake up after this marriage fiasco in 10, 15, or 20 years, and the fruit of it will be absolutely devastating for children.’

desiringGod.org

own ­bodies. We are going to wake up after this marriage fiasco in 10, 15, or 20 years, and the fruit of it will be absolutely devastating for children, for all the legal implications we haven’t thought of, for thousands of people who tried their best to manage their undesired same-sex orientation and didn’t get any help from the leaders of their land.

Who knows what will follow in terms of polygamy and other kinds of sex once you have

Email: molasky@worldmag.com

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story of the Sadducees who came to Him and asked, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus replied that they should first tell Him if the baptism of John was from heaven or from man?

The Sadducees discussed His challenge and concluded if they say it’s from man, the crowd will stone them, but if they say it’s from heaven Jesus will ask why they didn’t believe him.

So they said something politically correct? They replied, “We don’t know,” and Jesus refused to answer them.

Jesus won’t talk to people like that. I don’t like to be put in a position where Jesus won’t talk to me. Therefore I abominate political correctness. I abominate calculating your words so that you get acceptance by sacrificing truth.

But you defend the ­biblical principle? Biblically I think the taking of a human life from Genesis 9 is based squarely on the dignity of humanity and not the minimizing of human worth. That’s the argument in the Bible, and I don’t think anything about that argument changes with the coming of Jesus. You didn’t become less in the image of God. My killing of you didn’t become less heinous because of that.

What do you say to Bethlehem College and Seminary graduates who want to go where the ­g reatest need is, whether it’s here in America or at frontier missions? Most of us don’t make our decisions about life calling by a rational calculation of where the ­greatest need is. That’s partly because it’s impossible to

ness of people in wealthy America. We learn about our gifts. We learn from a church that is watching us and confirming or not confirming various gifts in our lives. We learn as we read the Bible to see God’s heart regarding various issues. We take all five of those learnings, put them in a pot— and when the smoke comes up then you follow where it blows.

You decide by ... By what’s burning in your heart. I pray that each graduate will have a different and appropriate burning—and they’ll follow the burning. It may be a simple church in a rural town in Minnesota or it may be the most scary place in Pakistan— and you have no idea which one of those will have the greatest impact. What God wants from us is a love for holiness, a love for people, a love for obedience. A

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Reviews > Music

One more look New installment of Dylan series vindicates Self Portrait BY ARSENIO ORTEZA

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“I     Surviving in a Ruthless World,” said Bob Dylan in , explaining why he’d called his then-latest album Infidels. “But someone pointed out to me that the last bunch of albums I’d made all started with the letter s. So I said, ‘Well, I don’t wanna get bogged down in the letter s.’”

Albums starting with s have a long history of bogging Dylan’s career down. Street-Legal (), Slow Train Coming (), Saved (), Shot of Love ()—each burned bridges with critics and fans.

But the trouble all started with Self Portrait, the double album of countrypolitan covers and curiosities Dylan released in June , hoping it would convince people who’d spent the ’s acclaiming him the Voice of a Generation to leave him and his family alone.

In retrospect, it was a logical next step, coming as it did after the decidedly mellow, country-inflected John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline. At the time, though, it was taken as an insult to all things seriously countercultural and instantly became stigmatized as one of the worst albums ever by a major rock and roller.

It wasn’t. And, as if to prove as much, Columbia Records has made Self

Portrait the centerpiece of its th installment of the Dylan Bootleg Series.

Titled Another Self Portrait (-), the two-disc “standard” edition presents seven of Self Portrait’s stronger tracks stripped of producer Bob Johnston’s embellishments (strings mostly) and excavates  previously unreleased outtakes and alternate versions of songs recorded during the sessions for Nashville Skyline, Self Portrait, and New Morning. It also includes a different version of “Wallflower” than the one that appeared on The Bootleg Series, Vols. - and two live tracks from Dylan’s  Isle of Wight concert with The Band.

But Disc Three of the “deluxe” edition (which also includes the original, remastered Self Portrait [Disc Four] and two books) presents the concert in its entirety. And those  performances blow away even such meritorious studio

Dylan

cuts as “Thirsty Boots,” “This Evening So Soon,” “These Hands,” and “Tattle O’Day.” (Apparently getting bogged down in t is not such a bad thing).

That Dylan scandalized folkies by “going electric” in  and staying electric until his motorcycle accident in  is well documented. But listening to him deliver much of that same music three years later in a smooth, revitalized croon is to hear him stake, in some ways, an even more joyfully defiant claim on a creative future that would for decades brook neither idolatry nor fashion.

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Legal release

Speaking of staking claims, another curious multidisc Dylan set appeared last December.

Released only in Europe and in a limited-edition, -copy run, The th Anniversary Collection: The Copyright Extension Collection, Vol.  enabled Sony Records to retain ownership of  early Dylan recordings that, in the European Union, would have otherwise passed into the public domain in .

Early coverage of this most odd intersection of supply, demand, and legislation assured fans in France and Germany who couldn’t land a hard copy that they’d be able to buy digital versions from Dylan’s website. But neither they nor anyone else can now, leaving connoisseurs of Dylan’s creatively fertile period between Bob Dylan () and The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan () little choice but to fork over , (the current going price on eBay) or to download illicit uploads.

It’s an undifferentiated vault dump, and redundancies abound. (There are seven versions of “Mixed Up Confusion” alone.) But the performances are spirited and the sound excellent.

And it doesn’t start with s. —A.O.

NOTABLE CDs

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

Fortunate Fall Audrey Assad Having grown weary of CCM’s more market-driven expectations, this now-erstwhile Sparrow Records’ star has gone Kickstarter-Campaign indie, the better to pursue what she considers her true calling: “to be a musician who writes songs for the Church and for the faithful to use in prayer.” In laymen’s terms, imagine what Sarah McLachlan might sound like were she to try following in John Michael Talbot’s footsteps. In Kierkegaardian terms, imagine purity of heart—resulting from the willing of one thing—given free, worshipfully aesthetic rein.

Life in the Midwater Aisha Burns According to her label’s website, the title of this Austinbased singer-songwriter’s debut album refers to the “heavy realities [that] start to settle in” when “you’re in your mid-s.” And, truth be told, she too much.

(Life does go on.) But something in the way her voice slips from its natural range into falsetto recalls Joni Mitchell in her mid-s just enough to keep one listening. So does the elasticity of her melodies. And the strings impressionistically applied atop her acoustic guitar don’t hurt.

DAVID GAHR/GETTY IMAGES

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See You There Glen Campbell The vocals of these revisited greatest hits and misses were recorded during the same  sessions that produced what was supposed to have been Campbell’s farewell, Ghost on the Canvas Canvas, with the largely acoustic instrumentation added later. Yet, while nostalgia and Campbell’s Alzheimer’s loom, they don’t loom large. In fact, whereas Ghost on the Canvas tended to sound like a Big Statement, this album sounds relaxed, both versions of “Waiting on the Comin’ of My Lord” included.

And, frankly, who wouldn’t prefer to remember Campbell that way?

Walker of the Snow Seán Tyrrell “All music is folk music,” said Louis Armstrong. “I ain’t never heard no horse sing a song.” And neither, apparently, has the Irish troubadour Seán Tyrrell.

Whether he’s placating traditionalists with “She Moves Through the Fair,” “On Top of Old Smoky,” and “The Derry Air” (a.k.a. “Danny Boy”) or welcoming novitiates with John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” and a rearranged “You Are My Sunshine,” his voice (which crosses Richard Thompson and Chris Smither) and guitar and mandocello (which speak volumes) serve an uncommonly bracing and panoramic vision.

Email: aorteza@worldmag.com

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SPOTLIGHT There are two explanations for why most of the sower’s seed known as “classic” Contemporary Christian Music hasn’t aged well.

One is that it fell on shallow or stony ground. The other is that the seed itself was bad to begin with.

Ergo, there are only two explanations for why the classic CCM band Daniel Amos still retains its artistic and prophetic bite. The group’s soil (commercial opportunities) is no deeper or more fertile than before. So the reason must be that Daniel Amos is good.

On Dig Here Said the Angel (Stunt), Terry Taylor’s lyrics and the band’s primary (and secondary) hooks combine to produce a deeply biblical and powerfully moody song suite dedicated to St. John of the Cross. Anyone who has ever looked in the face aging, suffering, and dying will relish the empathy. And anyone who ever will, if he knows what’s good for him, should.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2013 • WORLD

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9/3/13 9:05 PM

Mindy Belz

Failure to thrive Even before universal coverage, Medicare’s dominance over healthcare is making war on the doctor-patient bond

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WORLD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

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Two generations later, Medicare hospital insurance faces a  billion shortfall—and overall long-term unfunded liabilities of  trillion. Absent reform, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that Medicare spending will skyrocket from  billion in  to . trillion in . The utopian dream in a matter of decades has become a dystopian nightmare underlying all Washington budget battles.

While costs soar, compassion for the sick falters. In the hospitals of America, Medicare rules rule. Medicare dictated that my mother be released on the third day of hospitalization—even though her very mysterious but potent infection had not fully been cultured and her doctors readily admitted they couldn’t provide a full diagnosis. We discovered specialized outpatient care she needed was prohibitively expensive—and not covered by Medicare. Like many elderly, my mother is a widow of just over  years who worked past retirement age but now watches as her net worth plummets.

Medicare and Medicaid encourage this, requiring lowincome and elderly patients to give up assets and personal property to qualify for care.

We must assume these trends are forerunners to what government healthcare for all ages will be like once it is universal.

I saw valiant examples of compassion by caregivers toward my mom. After learning Medicare would not cover her services, one specialist agreed to do an exam anyway. She submitted a handwritten report “to avoid the system.”

Our third-party payer system—government subsidized care and corporate health insurance alike—is making war on this bond between patient and care provider, essential to making sick people well. Until we address this fundamental flaw, and recognize the warped effect it’s having on the content of care as well as the cost, we cannot treat so-called healthcare reform. A

KRIEG BARRIE

O      to see the doctor, squeezes your hand, and tells you it’ll be OK; then suddenly it’s you taking her, squeezing her hand, and filling out all the papers she feels too lousy to complete. One day you lean into your mother’s chest during church, rest your ear hard to hear the steady thump of her heart beating; and in what seems the blink of an eye you’re watching that same heart beat on the echocardiogram monitor.

Because the space between the time your mom takes care of you and you suddenly find yourself taking care of her can squeeze down into the merest measure, how we take care of one another when we are sick is preeminently important. Those trips to the emergency room, the broken bones and internal bleeding (mine, ), the raging infection and shortness of breath (hers, ) take us captive, seize us with the uncertainty and the brevity of this life. Our whole lives flash before us, and all our choices rise up to confound and perhaps condemn us. There’s a reason Jesus took physical healing so seriously.

So I found myself in a busy emergency room on a late Sunday evening, my mom quiet about our sudden situation amid the beeps of IV pumps and the sound of vomiting down the hall. Don’t talk to me about Medicare protocols or healthcare budget battles. In that moment what matters is my mom receiving the kind of attention that will correctly diagnose what’s wrong, the kind of care that will make her well again.

I don’t mean overabundance of care, useless motions of care, I mean the right care—knowledgeable, compassionate professionals giving their best advice and applying it with the best medicine. Because Jesus did make healing His business, and the human body is a wonder: Even at its most broken it’s striving and ready to be healed.

Lyndon Johnson was breakfasting with congressmen to win passage of Medicare and Medicaid about the time I was making a habit of falling asleep to the soft thumping of my mom’s chest during long sermons. In  the American Medical Association warned against the dangers of “socialized medicine,” but LBJ told lawmakers, “I’ll take care of [the money],” and dismissed constitutional objections with, “What’s the Constitution between friends?” (see p. ).

Email: mbelz@worldmag.com

9/4/13 8:06 AM

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Birmingh

Relations between blacks and whites have improved in what was once a hot bed o

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GHAM+50

a hot bed of racist violence, but a lot of work remains

by EMILY BELZ in Birmingham, Ala.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2013 • WORLD

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

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Police believe that after midnight on Sept. 15, 1963,

four white Klansmen planted 11 sticks of dynamite wrapped in paper in the basement stairwell of 16th Street Baptist Church, a Birmingham church founded by emancipated slaves in 1873.

That September, the first few African-American children had integrated the white Birmingham public schools. The furious Klansmen set the timer on the bomb for Sunday morning.

Addie Mae Collins

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Denise McNair

were preparing for the service. The pastor of the church at the time, John Cross, was one of the first to the ­rubble, and he and others dug out the bodies. He didn’t recognize the girls because they were so burned and disfigured. “They were all on top of each other, as if they had hugged each other,” Cook related in an oral history for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

He found Addie Mae’s sister Sarah in the bathroom too, alive but with her face covered in blood. She lost an eye. Other children had sprinted away from the church after the bomb went off: Frantic parents found them scattered across downtown Birmingham.

The bombing shifted the course of the civil rights movement, erasing any possible ambivalence. “No matter who you are, or what color you are, when a kid is killed, it throws a different light on things,” said Tom Cherry, the son of one of the convicted bombers, decades later in an interview with Texas Monthly. A question now: What came of those deaths? What has changed in Birmingham in the 50 years since that bomb exploded?

Carole Robertson

all photos from 1963: ap

The church had designated that day as Youth Sunday. As Sunday school classes finished before the worship service, a gaggle of girls in the downstairs bathroom prepared for their special roles. Cynthia Wesley, 14, and Carole Robertson, 14, were planning to serve as ushers. Addie Mae Collins, 14, and Denise McNair, 11, would sing in the choir. The lesson in their mothers’ Sunday school class that morning was titled, “The Love That Forgives.”

Segregationists were detonating bombs all over Birmingham in 1963. In May, they bombed the front half of Rev. A.D. King’s home. The minister and his family, in the back rooms, survived uninjured. That same day two bombs exploded at the Gaston Motel, where civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., had been meeting. No one died. Twice, once in August and again in September, they bombed the home of one of the first black lawyers to practice in Alabama, Arthur Shores.

One blast knocked his wife unconscious. No one died.

At 10:22 a.m. on Sept. 15, 1963, the dynamite exploded feet from where Cynthia, Carole, Addie Mae, and Denise

Cynthia Wesley

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all photos from 1963: ap

1963: An overflow crowd attends the funeral services at 16th Street Baptist Church for three of the four girls (above); ambulance attendants load the body of one of the girls.

Fifty years later, the South has become a better place for blacks to live.

African-American church leaders in Birmingham agree that race relations between blacks and whites have massively improved, and they think it’s in part because black Southern churches were the heart of the civil rights movement in the first place. But despite all these positive developments AfricanAmerican church leaders today see growing disparities and systemic divides that aren’t unique to the South.

“All is not well because you can’t legislate love,” said Janice Kelsey, a lifelong Birmingham resident and an African-American.

A few months before

the bombing, teenager Kelsey had joined a children’s march in Birmingham that police disbursed with water hoses and

dogs. Kelsey, arrested, spent four days in jail. Her school expelled her, but a court reversed that. No court could reverse the 16th Street explosion, which killed Janice’s friend, Cynthia.

Despite that horror, Kelsey has stayed in Birmingham her whole life and watched her city change. She is now a deacon at Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, which four months ago invited Shade Mountain Baptist, a white church in a wealthy Birmingham suburb, to come into a poor area of Birmingham, the West End, for a joint worship service.

At the joint service the black church choir sang, bringing the house down.

Then the white choir sang, without exactly bringing the house down, but the black congregation clapped and shouted encouragement. Shade Mountain pastor Danny Wood preached, and tried to adapt to his audience talking back to him with words of encouragement during the sermon. After Wood’s sermon, Greater Shiloh pastor Michael Wesley stood up

and said, “If we can meet here it has a chance to happen in municipalities. It has a chance to happen in cities. It has a chance to happen around the world.”

It was the first time in its 122 years of existence that Greater Shiloh had held a joint service with a white church.

Wesley told me he and Wood have connected over their shared vision for the city and their desires for church growth.

Wesley hopes Shade Mountain will help his church develop leaders, and he has encouraged his congregation to meet with Shade Mountain leaders and learn what they do day to day. He has told Wood that his church might have something to learn from Greater Shiloh, too: Their churches have begun doing service projects in Birmingham together.

“It’s been a long time, but we had to work through a lot,” Wesley said: “The old guard is passing on. The young, more educated minister is coming to the leadership ranks. … Even in the black church, some of the older pastors would not have been as ready to engage in interracial relationship because they had grown up in the bitterness of the struggle, and perhaps would have been less trusting and less willing.”

Wesley noted that African-American church leaders are now struggling with black-on-black violence and shattered families: “The enemy is not so much other people–the issue violence-wise is coming from people who know one another.” Wesley doesn’t support segregation—he calls it “a hiding place for bigotry”—but says the problems are in part a by-product of forced integration, because black neighborhoods in Birmingham before desegregation, were close-knit.

Parents, Wesley said, kept their children close and avoided leaving neighborhoods because they feared Ku Klux Klan and police brutality. Kids spoke respectfully to adults and elders: “People would speak on the street, it was the manners you were taught. You approach someone and say, ‘Hello, ma’am, how are you?’” In the past 50 years those ways have eroded: “Now people take more of a hands-off approach. People live more isolated lives. It’s possible to live in a neighborhood and not know the people across the street.”

But the black church’s integral role in the civil rights movement has born

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That list of activities

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safer for blacks and offers better job prospects with a lower cost of living, that population shift (known as the Great Migration) has reversed. From 2000 to 2010, according to Census data, the percentage of the country’s black population living in the South grew and the population living in the Northeast and Midwest shrank. The black populations in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas grew by more than 20 percent.

There’s a downside: In Alabama, only about half of black males graduate from high school in four years, and some graduates are poorly educated.

Many African-Americans are well aware, as they see the success of AsianAmericans, that attributing economic disparities primarily to racism has grown old: Cultural attitudes toward family and education seem to be stronger forces, with kids growing up in twoparent families having big advantages.

A good education is more closely related to a good job in Birmingham

WALT STRICKLIN/Landov

indicates how attention has moved away from civil rights as such to issues of economics and education. In the first half of the 20th century, AfricanAmericans fled north to find jobs and escape harsh Jim Crow laws. But now, as the South has become physically

50 YEARS LATER: A third-grade class from Talladega, Ala., walks near 16th Street Baptist Church (above) on their way to Kelly Ingram Park (left) to see sculptures depicting events from the 1963 Children’s Crusade marches.

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handout

fruit 50 years later in improved relations between blacks and whites.

“Black people especially in the South have been incredibly forgiving. That to me is a miracle,” said Randy Nabors, a white pastor who grew up in the projects of Newark, N.J., and has long been involved in ministries that cross racial lines like New City Fellowship in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Wesley emphasized the importance of “outward-focused theology” that strives to bring in unchurched people and apply the Bible to daily life: Greater Shiloh now hosts financial seminars, adopts school districts, has neighborhood youth programs, and is opening a health clinic and working on a job training program.

handout

WALT STRICKLIN/Landov

today than it was 50 years ago when Birmingham was a center of steel manufacturing, and people without much education could still get decent-paying jobs. Now, the steel industry is gone.

The city’s economy is based on the healthcare industry, and the economic outlook is bleak for those without a high-school diploma. Almost every African-American I interviewed in Birmingham mentioned the racial divide in the public-education system, and how black children were stuck at the terrible city schools while whites attended better suburban schools.

The economic divide between white and black communities is also wide.

Today the median wealth of a white household is 20 times that of a black household, according to Pew Research Center analysis of government data from 2009. That gap is the largest since the government began gathering data.

Median black wealth dropped about 50 percent from 2005 to 2009, largely due to the housing market crash. In Birmingham, “African-Americans control the city government–and 1 percent of the wealth,” said Ahmad Ward, a historian at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

Some Christian community development organizations in Birmingham neighborhoods are working to alleviate the economic disparities. Christian Service Mission has its home in a warehouse in a rusted-out neighborhood near the train tracks. Its energetic director Tracy Hipps, a short white man with a drawl, is friends with just about every African-American pastor in town. He tried to explain the organization’s work as we walked through the warehouse, which that particular day had an excess of ice cream sandwiches.

“You know what? Let’s real quick get in my truck,” he said.

Hipps zoomed out of the industrial blocks and over a bridge to downtown Birmingham. “You see those houses up there?” he said, pointing to the ridge around the city. “That’s the mountain.

The richest people live up there.” He drove through Avondale, a low-income neighborhood in which his organization works, and then across the train tracks that divide poor Avondale from a gentrifying neighborhood where the city has built a new park. He pointed

out a new brewery and a barbecue joint in the gentrified neighborhood. His mission partners with churches along one interstate highway, “the corridor of resources,” and connects them with churches on another interstate, “the corridor of need.”

As African-American church leaders watch children in their communities struggle at school, and young men struggle with unemployment, prison populations have grown. Racist echoes remain: Nationwide, African-Americans are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana violations than whites, even though the two groups use the drug at about the same rate.

Carl Ellis Jr., an African-

American theology professor at Redeemer Seminary in Dallas, and an expert on the history of the AfricanAmerican church, agrees that the black community has its own internal crises.

He says the black church as a whole fails to do a great job solving those issues, but he also sees an opportunity for the black church to teach the larger evangelical church how to function as a minority within the larger American culture, which increasingly marginalizes churches both white and black.

“The evangelical church does not have a theology of suffering, whereas the black church does,” Ellis said.

“The African-American church has an incredible opportunity to help our dominant brothers operate and thrive in a subdominant position.”

Fifty years ago, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. voiced this theology of suffering when he delivered a short eulogy for the four girls at 16th Street Baptist a few days after the bombing: “God still has a way of wringing good out of evil. And history has proven over and over again that unmerited suffering is redemptive.

The innocent blood of these little girls may well serve as a redemptive force that will bring new light to this dark city. ” Fifty years later on a summer Sunday in the basement of 16th Street Baptist, young people gathered where the bomb went off. They laughed and chatted, sharing a platter of cupcakes to celebrate a girl’s birthday. A

Racism up North Barnett Wright, an African-American who is part of the reversal of the Great Migration, moved to Birmingham 13 years ago from Philadelphia and covers civil rights issues (among other things) for the Birmingham News. “People believe because it’s the South, it’s worse,” Wright said. “It’s not. There’s racism in the South, South Boston, South Chicago. … The white structure [in Birmingham] is more sensitive because of what happened.”

The Philadelphia Fire Department officially desegregated in 1952, but schools had de facto segregation into the early 1960s, and court battles about school segregation lasted up to the 1990s. Carl Ellis, the Redeemer Seminary theology professor, notes that “There was not really a civil rights movement in the North.” Today, Bob and Dwendolyn Dillard, longtime AfricanAmerican Philadelphians, said people don’t discuss race: Black husbands might talk about it with their wives in the privacy of their own homes, but not in public.

David Apple, the head of Tenth Presby­ terian Church’s mercy ministry, who has long worked on racial issues, said Southern racism “was in your face. In the North, it’s subtle.” African-Americans in Philadelphia feel it, and teacher Kevin Little, a longtime Philadelphian, knows the habits a black man must adapt. When Little, who attends “Tenth Pres,” sees a purse in a pew, he won’t sit near it. Once he brought a reusable bag into a Walgreens, and the offduty officer in the store told him to check the bag up front. “If you’re white, you’re saving the environment,” Little said.

If he sees flashing lights, even if he’s trying to catch a bus, he won’t run: “A black man running—you just don’t do it.”

Little recalls everyday frictions: Someone in his church asking if he’s the janitor. His daughter, ashamed of her hair. A Sunday school children’s curriculum that only depicts white people, teaching about John Calvin or John Newton but not African-Americans of faith, a classroom with pictures only of white children. (Tenth Pres changed it.) Little said white people will sometimes complain to him that he constantly bring up the issue of race. He returns: “We’re race conscious because we have to be.” —Emily Belz in Philadelphia

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AGAINST

TIDE

THE

E.W. Jackson gained his values from his father. His race for statewide office will test whether those values can still win elections

by Edwa rd Lee Pitts in Williamsburg, Va.

E

arl Walker Jackson uses two words to describe his early childhood: juvenile delinquent. His parents separated soon after his birth, forcing Jackson to shuttle around different foster homes until landing with one family at the age of two.

Jackson spent his youth angry and resentful of his biological parents. Police officers came after him for petty crimes and truant officers tracked him down for missing school. He failed fifth grade and joined a gang at the age of nine.

He ran the streets of Chester, Pa., with no guidance, refusing to listen to his foster parents.

His was a stereotyped storyline for black boys growing up in America without a father. Except Jackson’s life took an uncommon turn: His father came back.

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WORLD • September 21, 2013

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Hearing that his son was out of control, William Jackson, a welder, said, “I can handle him.” In the early 1960s, he took the 10-year-old Jackson to live with him. He gave his son two rules: Study in school and obey me. “If you do these things,” the elder Jackson said, “then every day with me will be like a day of heaven on earth. But if you fail to do these things then I am going to tear your behind all to pieces.”

E.W. Jackson weighed the options and decided on education and obedience.

Jackson went from failing grades to “A” student. He went from juvenile delinquent to Marine and Harvard Law graduate. This summer, Jackson, now 61 and living in Chesapeake, Va., surprised political pundits by winning Virginia’s Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. Thanks to a fiery speech at the nominating convention, Jackson overcame six better-funded and more-established candidates to become something the Republican Party needs: a black candidate in a statewide race.

all photos: jackson campaign

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But Jackson’s outspokenness about his Christian faith—he has been the pastor of predominately black churches for the last 30 years—also has made him a test case for the future of evangelical office seekers in the face of the country’s cultural shifts.

Almost as soon as Jackson pulled off the nominating upset, journalists and politicians—including some from within his own party—painted Jackson’s views as too outside the mainstream for public office. They wrote about how Jackson displayed a Bible and cross at the entrance to his convention party and that his positions on abortion, gay marriage, and the Democratic Party made him a fanatic with a dangerous agenda.

Republican Bill Bolling, Virginia’s current lieutenant governor, told the media that Jackson’s nomination “will feed the image of extremism, and that’s not where the Republican Party needs to be.”

The passionate rhetoric that got Jackson the nomination is often colorful and occasionally raw and blunt. He called the Democratic Party the anti-God, anti-life, and anti-family party. He said Planned Parenthood has been “far more lethal to black lives than the KKK.” He has opposed gay marriage by saying homosexuality poisons culture and destroys families.

Jackson says he doesn’t have to apologize because he criticizes organizations, worldviews, and lifestyles rather than individuals. He told reporters on the campaign trail that going after his religious views is like “attacking every churchgoing person, every family that’s living a traditional family life.”

Jackson argues that he has stayed the same while the culture around him has changed.

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“In the end politics is not going to judge me, God is. … I am Christian first before anything else.”

Jackson worries that the media’s depiction of him amounts to a religious test and insinuates that churchgoing, Biblebelieving Christians no longer have a place in public office. He doesn’t believe that voters embrace that view, but he blames the country’s ongoing cultural transformations on too many Christians abdicating their roles in the public square.

“I am not ashamed to say that our nation needs prayer,” he says. “Why that has become so controversial is lost on me.”

J

ackson became a Christian at an unlikely place: Harvard Law School. During the summer after his first year, his father announced he was reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. The news surprised Jackson. His dad didn’t attend church. Jackson decided that he also ought to know something about the Bible.

Jackson approached it as an intellectual exercise, but the Holy Spirit, using the influence Jackson’s father, soon spoke to Jackson through the Scriptures. By the fall of 1976 Jackson began to feel conviction and comfort while reading about David’s love for God in the Psalms. Jackson started to pray even in the car while his wife shopped for groceries.

After talking to a struggling classmate, Jackson surprised himself by purchasing a Bible for the friend. Jackson professed faith in Christ just before Christmas in 1976, weeping as he answered an alter call at a local church. Some of his family members thought the rigors of Harvard had gotten to him and caused a nervous breakdown. But Jackson stayed in school,

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Jackson called the Democratic Party the anti-God, anti-life, and antifamily party. He said Planned Parenthood has been ‘far more lethal to black lives than the KKK.’ taking courses at Harvard’s divinity school as well, eventually becoming a lawyer, pastor, and radio host.

On the campaign trail today, Jackson tells Virginians that he is “not running to be pastor of Virginia or theologian of Virginia.” Instead, he says he wants to “get the government off of our backs.” Jackson says he is an example that an AfricanAmerican can have success with less government and greater personal responsibility.

“People ask me why are you conservative? My dad instilled those values in me. He was a black man born in 1915 who had an optimistic view about this nation.” His father said he had to work hard and resist the temptation to make excuses. When people find out that you are trying to do something with your life, you will be amazed how help will come from unexpected places, his father told Jackson.

His father lived as a hobo during the Great Depression, ­riding freight trains across the country looking for work. “My father had people come out of their doors offering sandwiches and lemonade. He saw the fundamental decency of the American people. They didn’t care about the color of his skin. They just knew that he MARCHING ORDERS: Top down. was hurting.”

Years later his father made the young Jackson do his homework right after school and remain within earshot when playing outside afterward. When he heard his father’s whistle—the loudest in the neighborhood—Jackson raced home before his father came to look for him. But his father also saved up to take Jackson to the Wildwood amusement park in New Jersey and promised him a car if he did well in school.

When Jackson turned 16, his father could not afford another car. So he gave his own car to his son.

Driving around in his 1960 black Pontiac Catalina, Jackson felt like the coolest teenager on campus. He had one responsibility: He had to

pick up his father from work. Jackson still remembers how dirty and soot-covered his father looked coming out of the shipyard along the Delaware River.

Jackson tells families that the blessings in his life aren’t based on government programs. His father hated welfare and food stamps, choosing work instead. “What I want to say to the average black person is do you want the success of seeing your kids get degrees from top schools and get good jobs or do you simply want a check every month that guarantees you a ­subsistence existence? To me that is an easy choice.”

That’s why Jackson founded Youth With a Destiny, a nonprofit helping inner-city youth avoid gangs and violence. He also began Exodus Now, an effort to encourage Christians in the black community to leave the Democratic Party because its leadership has “abandoned the founding principles of this nation.”Married for 42 years and with three children, Jackson also started the annual Chesapeake Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Breakfast that’s continued for more than a decade.

Jackson had his own exodus. An active member of the Democratic Party during his nearly three decades living in Boston, Jackson once won election to the party’s Massachusetts State Committee. But the party’s stances on abortion brought about a crisis of conscience: He left the party in the 1980s, and in 1998 he left Massachusetts, saying he was looking for a place more compatible with his faith. He settled in Virginia where his ancestors once were sharecroppers.

In stump speeches Jackson doesn’t emphasize race. “I’m not an African-American, I am an American,” is one of his favorite lines. He describes instead the threat he sees to the country’s traditional Judeo-Christian values. He calls that perspective “essential to the character of our country” and fears a nation that turns to government instead of God. Jackson’s race will be watched by Republicans across the country who are reaching out to minority voters and debating how to handle social issues in the aftermath of the 2012 elections. Some favor moderating or minimizing the party’s social views. But the 2013 Economic Values Survey, published this summer by the left-leaning Brookings Institution, found that more Americans (29 percent) identify themselves as social conservatives than as economic conservatives (25 percent).

The polling of more than 2,000 Americans found that 48 ­percent of Republicans call themselves social conservatives, ­suggesting that the party ignores such issues at its own risk.

“It is not a battle between Democrats and Republicans or between black and white or rich and poor,” Jackson says.

“I think this is ultimately a spiritual battle over vision and values.” A

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Listening and leading

WORLD • September 21, 2013

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T Christopher and Mary Anne Yep fight the contraceptive mandate and make female employees happy

by Da niel Ja me s Dev ine in Oak Brook, Ill. p h oto s b y S h a u n S a r t i n /g e n e s i s

he Obama administration says Triune Health Group, an Illinois healthcare ­management company, disrespects women because its health insurance plan does not cover abortifacients and contraceptives.

Women, though, disagree. When Crain’s Chicago Business sent anonymous surveys to Chicago companies last year and asked female employees about work culture, fairness of pay, vacation time, and relationships with management and co-workers, Triune’s employees were so happy with their situation that Triune beat out Microsoft for first place in Crain’s 2012 list of “Best Places to Work for Women.”

“Can you imagine our joy?” recalls Mary Anne Yep, Triune’s vice president: “We’re getting the news that this is being announced while we’re writing the brief for our ­lawsuit against the government,” which is trying to force all companies into an Obamacare vise. The president of Triune, Christopher Yep, also relishes the irony, which isn’t surprising: He and Mary Anne are partners in business and marriage, with eight children.

The Yeps started Triune 23 years ago after the birth of their sixth child. Back then Christopher made calls from a home office, periodically disturbed by the sound of kids pounding up and down a wooden staircase. Today, Triune has grown to about STANDING FIRM: Christopher 80 employees—two-thirds are female— and Mary Anne. and moved into a suite of offices behind locked glass doors in Oak Brook, Ill. With a network of “field nurses,” Triune assists other companies by overseeing workers injured on the job, ensuring they get the medical care they need to return to health and employment as soon as possible.

As Roman Catholics, the Yeps cannot in good conscience pay for abortive and contraceptive drugs and devices, and are suing in federal and state courts to stop the mandate’s enforcement. Following church doctrine, the Yeps don’t believe in contraception or in vitro fertilization. “It’s separating human beings from the procreative process,” Mary Anne says. They are fervently pro-life: Although they have eight children (five work for Triune today), they count 10, since the last two were miscarriages.

Mary Anne used to take her children to pray the rosary in front of a local abortion center: “We were married in the year that abortion was [legalized]. We thought to ourselves: Our children’s classrooms are going to shrink before our eyes.”

The Yeps have been maneuvering to avoid paying for contraceptives for years, long before Obama invented Obamacare. In 1990, when they started the business, Mary Anne called around for a health insurance plan that didn’t provide abortion or contraceptives. Some people laughed at her request, but a pro-life group finally gave the name of an insurer willing to write the policy the Yeps wanted.

When they later switched insurance providers to meet Triune’s growing needs, they had the understanding their new policy would contain the same exclusions. But in 2004

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Illinois revised its law, requiring insurers to cover all FDA-approved contraceptives. The Yeps’ insurance company quietly slipped the coverage into Triune’s policy.

“The legislators kind of back-doored it,” Kevin White, an attorney with the Chicago-based Thomas More Society, said of the Illinois law. “Most employers are not even aware it’s in their coverage, and many, I think, would be offended to discover it there.” Illinois is just one of  states that have their own contraception mandate for businesses, with various exemptions for some religious employers.

The Thomas More Society is helping Triune sue both the federal government and Illinois over the mandates.

Courts have granted injunctions in both cases, meaning Triune won’t have to pay fines until judges make final decisions. White said the cases argue the state and federal contraceptive mandates force the Yeps to violate their First Amendment right to freely practice their religion as employers: “There is no separation in their minds

EMPLOYEE between acting out the gospel, if APPRECIATION: you will, and running their Mary Anne (right) business.” with Triune Christopher Yep started Triune employees Samantha Geib partly as a reaction to secular and Christa Diener. business practices that could harm marriages and steal family time: He remembers his former employer, for example, hosting a dance at a hotel without spouses, and asking employees to attend an after-hours picnic at the boss’s house.

Triune is the Yeps’ effort to create a pro-family work environment where hours are flexible and employees can get time off to deal with personal or family matters.

“They will set you up with a therapist, if that’s what you need,” says Jodi MacEwan, , a nurse case manager and an Episcopalian. MacEwan says she came from a “tumultuous background” and joined Triune ½ years ago with a defensive spirit, but the kindness of company managers convinced her, “You don’t have to rule by harshness.” The company’s emphasis on listening



carefully to employees’ needs and complaints has even prompted her to improve her communication with her husband.

The work culture flows directly from the relational and communication skills the Yeps, both , have honed during  years of marriage. Christopher is naturally reserved and speaks after carefully forming his thoughts. Mary Anne is more outgoing and free flowing in conversation. After four decades together, they often finish one another’s sentences. They listen attentively, brainstorm together, and laugh together. Christopher says after their children grew up, the company improved because Mary Anne was able to offer more of her time and perspective. They’ve learned if they can’t agree on a decision, it might be the wrong thing to do.

Christopher says: “As I become more aware of my failings and weaknesses, and Mary Anne of her own, we become a little bit more humble, a little bit more accepting, and a little bit more able to see how God’s providence uses those struggles to draw us closer together.”

Forgiveness keeps both marriage and the workplace running smoothly, says Mary Anne. “People are human. They’re fully human here. People are not robots.” Turning to her husband, she inadvertently reveals another secret ingredient—praise: “Your patience has been fantastic. For everybody.”

Another one of Triune’s nurse case managers, Emily Camaioni, , says Triune has a team spirit and a focus on helping people she didn’t experience at her previous job: “I felt I was a money generator.”

But at Triune, managers genuinely care. “When my mother passed away, Chris and Mary Anne Yep, along with my supervisor … came to her funeral.” Like the Yeps, Camaioni is Catholic, and supports the lawsuits “ percent.”

The Yeps say they’ve never had a conflict with an employee over the lack of birth control coverage. When newcomers join Triune, they understand the company’s policies up front. Triune has workers who are Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, and “searching,” the Yeps say.

Mary Anne admits a few employees have left the company, abruptly and without explanation (she declines to say how many), but each position was immediately filled, thanks to the five to  résumés Triune receives each week. “I’m tired of working for companies who don’t value people,” one job hunter recently told her over the phone.

Even if the Yeps’ public stand for conscience rights scares off some employees or customers, they say they’ll keep fighting to preserve national religious liberty. They believe the contraceptive mandate is the biggest single attack on that liberty in American history.

“If we don’t fight these battles now, our children, our grandchildren, will pay the price in an entirely different country,” says Christopher. A

WORLD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

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Hope Award for Ef fective Com passion

Help on wheels south Regional winner

Beltline gives kids a chance to earn a bike and learn a work ethic

by SUSAN OLASKY and RACHEL COOPER in Atlanta

photos by tiffany owens

48

azor wire tops the fence that encircles the industrial building that houses the Beltline Bike Shop.

Only a small yellow sign signals the shop’s existence on the edge of the Adair Park neighborhood in southwest Atlanta.

Inside, though, the vibe is vibrant.

A small screen plays bike videos to a rap accompaniment. Grafitti-style bubble letters in yellow, orange, and purple spell out the shop name on one wall. Owner Tim O’Mara splits his attention between a man trying to pry a tire off a rim, and an elementaryschool student named Justin examining donated bikes.

“Mr. Tim, I’m afraid about this one,” Justin says of a 20-inch bike with a loose chain: “A little kid riding it and goes too fast—it’ll pop off.”

Justin wants to fix it and O’Mara tells him what tools he’ll need, then moves on to his next task. In the next half-hour O’Mara or his wife Becky circles back to Justin several times, checking to see how the repair is going, offering help where needed, and engaging him in conversation.

On a typical Saturday afternoon, that dynamic happens repeatedly with dozens of kids who come and learn how to fix bikes, experience the connection between hard work

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and rewards, and interact with adults who are good role models. The shop’s ­slogan: “Building community, one bike at a time.”

Beltline had its informal start in 2008 when the O’Maras moved to Adair Park, a neighborhood of inexpensive Craftsman-style bungalows and tall trees. Neighborhood problems with drugs, gangs, and litter did not deter them. Becky, now 31, worked in children’s ­ministry at a local church, and Tim, 41, owned a video production company. They wanted to be good neighbors but had no plan to “do ­ministry” in the neighborhood.

One day they were walking their dog in a park across the street from their house. They saw a girl they knew who owned a bike but wasn’t riding it because it had flat, worn-out tires. The O’Maras were casual bike riders and Tim was mechanically inclined, so they offered to help fix the bike if Brittany would do some chores around their house to pay for the new tires and tubes. After about three weeks, they said that was enough and would pick up the parts. It turned out, though, that a new bike cost just $10 more than the repairs. When they presented the new bike to Brittany, she “was over-themoon excited,” Becky said: After that “every kid was our new friend.”

From their front porch overlooking the park, the O’Maras had watched young kids hanging out with older teens who were “making bad choices.”

They saw an opportunity to build relationships naturally through bikes.

They’d also noticed how neighborhood kids had an expectation of free things.

“We weren’t going to have that,” Becky (now known as Ms. Becky) said. “That’s not how we grew up and we didn’t want to become that. We wanted to be a neighbor.” So they decided to find a way for kids to earn bikes.

The O’Maras began putting word out to families in the church where Becky worked: If you have bikes you’re

BICYCLE CONNECTION: Becky O’Mara helps a child with a bicycle pump.

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outgrowing, we’d be glad to take them off your hands. As bikes came in, the O’Maras invited kids to earn them, but only after introducing themselves to the families. They gave kids chores to do. When they ran out of odd jobs at their house, they set kids to work picking up trash in the local park. Litter was such a problem, Becky said, that kids could walk around the block and easily fill up four large trash bags.

They learned that bikes fostered long-term relationships. Once kids owned bikes, they came to the O’Maras for help with flat tires and loose chains.

50

Before long on Saturday mornings, Becky said, “our driveway looked like an old parts junk yard with 20-30 kids repairing their bikes or helping others.”

The O’Maras kept the bike program low-key, wanting to maintain natural, neighborly relationships with children.

Before kids could earn a bike, the O’Maras tried to meet their parents or grandparents. If kids had to use a ­bathroom, the O’Maras sent them home to do it.

They saw benefits: The park was cleaner and more kids were outside riding bikes. Adults in the neighborhood took an interest in what the kids

NO GIMMICKS: Kids rush in the moment O’Mara opens shop; neighborhood cleanup earns stars; star tally board (left to right).

were doing and learned their names.

Becky says the bikes became a way for neighbors to connect: “As we’re out and about, talking to our friends, we’re introducing them to kids.

Most kids in the neighborhood know four to 10 adults they see on a regular basis.”

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As bikes came in, the O’Maras invited kids to earn them, but only after introducing themselves to the families.

MONEY BOX 3 2012 contributions: $35,590 3 2012 expenses: $36,000 3 Net assets at the end of 2012: $20,000 in cash, $5,000 in tools and supplies 3 Tim O’Mara’s salary: $16,000 3 Staff: Five regular volunteers 3 2013 budget: 56,000

By 2010, the bike project had grown so much that the O’Maras converted it to a nonprofit and moved operations from their driveway to its present ­location. Beltline is officially open Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays and has become Tim’s full-time job. So far, kids have earned 257 bikes, repaired 2,744, and picked up 830 bags of trash. s Justin works on the bike with the loose chain, he explains what he’s doing: “I’m tightening the bolts on the bike so the bike will

be able to go good.” When he thinks the chain is tight, Ms. Becky tells him to take it for a test drive. Justin hesitates: “If the front tire pops off, I’m going to be in big trouble.” Better check it again!

Across the room, Joe—several years older and able to handle more complicated repairs—puts his bike on a rack: “I need some brake pads and front brake pads.” From time to time, Mr. Tim comes by to see how Joe is doing and give instructions: “You can’t force it. OK, now pull it out.”

Donated bikes carry numbered stickers showing the value in stars of each bike. Stars are the shop currency.

Each hour of work equals one star, and everything costs something. If a kid gets a flat tire and needs a patch, it costs either money or time. With stars, kids can buy new tires or tubes and extra stuff like locks, lights, and bells.

So when kids like Justin or Joe come into the shop, they work to earn stars.

They can also earn stars by picking up trash and helping neighbors.

Kids take their developing work ethics into the neighborhood. During spring break, the O’Maras noticed many 12-, 13-, and 14-year-olds out looking for jobs—walking dogs, cleaning houses, digging ditches, digging gardens. Tim

said it’s a “natural result of earning bikes.”

Outside the shop, some of the kids have chaotic lives. Inside, they operate

by Bike Shop rules, which are posted on the wall: “I will not deceive, cheat, or steal. I will be kind and forgive others.

I will not tell false stories. I will respect my parents and tell them where I’m going. …”

Tim O’Mara explains the shop ethos: “They’re children. Somebody has to be the adult. I’m the adult. I draw a line.

They need that, though. They need ­discipline. They need structure. When they have it, they thrive. That’s how the bike shop operates: It’s very strict and they operate well in it.”

Kids still come to the O’Maras’ house, but they don’t fix bikes on the porch anymore. Some of the long-term kids even get to go inside. That leads some kids on the fringe to ask, “Why can’t I come in?” Tim’s blunt answer: “I don’t know your momma. That’s it. Sorry.”

Over the past four years, the O’Maras have seen three kids deal with a parent’s death from drug abuse, ­violence, or disease. Those tragedies, Becky says, provide “a unique time to minister to the family, to talk about life after death, reliance on God in difficult times, and where healing comes from.”

They’ve also seen kids they know make heartbreaking choices. As neighbors, they try to make a difference.

“Tim was made for a neighborhood like this and kids like this,” Becky says: “His abrasive, natural personality [suits] the boys in this area. They love him.” A

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Hope Award for Ef fective Com passion

Farmand home T

south Regional runner-up

Women on their way to drug rehab can begin the healing process at Solus Christus

by KIRA CLARK

in East Bend, N.C.

photos by Sam Cranston/Genesis

LIFE ON “THE FARM”: Warm and engaging bedrooms; Randy and Paula Barton at Solus Christus; group Bible study (left to right).

52

he fire alarm goes off as a 21-year-old cocaine addict with little experience in the kitchen is cooking dinner. Amid the commotion—dog barking, two women shouting, one near tears—Paula Barton walks in.

Tall, with shoulder-length silver hair held back by a black headband, Barton immediately takes charge.

Twenty-five minutes later, 10 recovering addicts sit around a large wooden table eating charred chicken casserole and overcooked garlic bread.

Barton has come to expect a degree of chaos. As founder (with her husband Randy) and director of Solus Christus, a transition house where female addicts begin the healing process, she deals with women right off drugs while they’re waiting the typical 3-4 weeks it takes for them to gain admission to rehab programs. That’s much longer than the

typical addict remains sober and willing to seek help.

In Paula Barton’s experience many addiction-prone adults struggle with authority and structure. At Solus Christus, addicts adjust to routine: Days begin with breakfast and devotions at 7:30 a.m. and end with nightly gratitude before bed at 9:30 p.m. In between, Bible studies, devotions, activities, and chores take place at regularly scheduled times.

Debbie Woolard stands over the sink pulling cooking directions off of a spiral-cut ham. Woolard’s parents never drank or did drugs, but she started using when she was 13: “It was like second nature, I mean we just sit around and start smoking pot. It was like normal.” Eight years into her addiction, Woolard became addicted to prescription drugs. To obtain Percocet, Valium, or Zyntax, she stole prescriptions from doctor’s offices.

Her mother had a heart attack when she caught Woolard dealing drugs to her cousin.

During her 20 years of drug use, Debbie divorced twice and lived apart from her children. Her daughter is now 13, and her son is 17. The thought of her own daughter doing drugs

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t­ errifies Woolard. She wants to do a two-month rehab so she can “start being a good mom,” but Barton encourages Woolard to consider a six-month rehab that deals specifically with the problems of long-term addictions.

Barton knows that lifelong addiction takes more than two months to heal and another relapse would be worse for Woolard’s children than an additional four months in rehab.

S

olus Christus is a kind of “Jesus camp.” Bible verses and biblical images hang on walls. Three tattered hymnals lean up against an old piano.

At 8:30 each morning, women gather in the activity center for Scripture recitations: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes.” Paula Barton turns to the room and asks, “What does that mean, the power of God?” A young woman with blond hair and dark-rimmed glasses answers: “It means that because Jesus died for me. I

can be saved.” Those words mean a lot because Courtney Hill, 22, came to Solus Christus hating Christianity. She’s out on $75,000 bail while awaiting trial on 32 counts of producing and possessing methamphetamine. If the court finds her guilty, it could sentence her to as long as 55 years in prison, but if she successfully completes rehab with a good report, she could get long-term probation instead.

Hill started doing drugs with her mom at age 12. When police raided her house on March 6, they found a full meth lab in her back bedroom. Hill used three different methods to produce methamphetamine, including two that the state hadn’t seen before. She bought everything she needed at Walmart and was making $100,000 a month as a professional cook: “I couldn’t tell you where the money went.”

Hill was also consuming six grams a day—even though, in her experience, most meth users can only tolerate a quarter gram every two or three days: “I was so caught up in my high—worried about how I was going to get high the next time—I didn’t have much time to worry about anything else.”

N

ine years ago, to help women like Woolard and Hill, the Bartons began inviting struggling addicts to live with them in Winston-Salem, N.C. They wanted to help these women get into already existing, Christian rehab programs.

Over the next four years, 20 addicts transitioned through their home.

The Bartons learned that living downtown made it too easy for some

MONEY BOX 3 2012 contributions: $57,985 3 Thrift store receipts: $65,356 3 2012 expenses: $110,598 3 Net assets at the end of 2012: $107,145 3 Staff: Four unpaid staff members 3 2013 budget: $128,800

women to fall back into alcohol and drug use, so in 2007 they bought for $220,000 a little yellow farmhouse on six acres, about 20 miles outside of Winston-Salem. In 2008, Solus Christus officially opened. Since then, 511 women have come through its doors.

Solus Christus suggests that women pay $50 a week in rent, but the ministry accountant rarely sees a payment.

Private donations and profits from Randy Barton’s bakery and the ministry thrift store sustain operations. Two women who went through Solus Christus and rehab last year work as volunteers alongside the Bartons.

Recently Courtney Hill spent three days in jail on an old misdemeanor and larceny charge. Her cell mate was an anorexic prostitute with arms covered in abscesses from shooting up. Hill says when she saw the deadness of the woman’s eyes, she scooped her up and held her for 30 minutes, praying that God would save her.

Being back in jail reminded Hill how much she does not want to spend any more time there. Before she came to Solus Christus, she believed producing methamphetamine was the only way to survive. Now Hill is learning another way. She carries from worship a bright green Recovery Bible and the Jesus Calling devotional. After lunch she does chores. Her job is taking care of the animals. As she carefully measures out grain for Moses the alpaca, she talks about trying to get her GED or going to technical school: “The way I’m living now is a whole new process for me.” A —Kira Clark is a World Journalism Institute graduate

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Sebastian Gorka

A sober anniversary

Twelve years after 9/11, the enemy is the same in New York, Boston, Benghazi, or Damascus

>>

By the time you read this America may be embroiled in another war in the Middle East.

Whether or not America bombs the Assad regime in Damascus cannot be a result of an analysis of Syria, its president Bashar al-Assad, or human rights abuses occurring within the country.

The violence in Syria is inextricably linked to the events that occurred on 9/11, to the attacks on the 9/11 anniversary last year in Benghazi—an attack that led to the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and his security detail—as well as to the Patriot’s Day bombing in Boston that killed three and wounded over 200. As we approach another 9/11 anniversary, the common factor behind these events is jihadi ideology and its direct impact on the national security of the

United States. It is a factor we have closed our eyes to as a nation for far too long.

In September 2011, at the highest levels of the U.S. government, the decision was made to purge all counterterrorism training within the Departments of Defense and Justice of any mention of religion or jihadi ideology.

This decision—which was, in effect, censorship—led to the banning of core training materials and the blacklisting of many of America’s leading experts within both the FBI and numerous military institutions.

Since that time, a system has been put in place whereby nameless officials serve as the arbiters of what can and cannot be said about al-Qaeda and its deadly allies. The identity of these gatekeepers remains secret, and what’s more, should an individual run afoul of the censors, there is no recourse and no appeal. As a result, official talk of the enemy has become vague and amorphous. The official label for

BULENT KILIC/AFP/GettyImages

common ideology: Members of a jihadist group fighting the government near Aleppo, Syria.

events such as the Boston bombing became “violent extremism,” and the Fort Hood shooting became designated “workplace violence.”

The connective tissue between 9/11, Benghazi, Boston, and Damascus is indeed an ideology of ­violent extremism, but a very specific kind. It is a totalitarian and absolutist vision of a future in which only one religion is permitted, and all dissenters must be killed or subjugated.

Despite what we would wish, the Islamist fighters in Syria are not fighting for a secular state in which all citizens have equal rights regardless of sex, race, ethnicity, or religion. The terrorists who killed Ambassador Stevens, the Tsarnaev brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon, and the jihadists in Syria are committed to the victory of a theocratic system where Islam reigns supreme. And now we want to help the latter take over the government of another nation in the Middle East.

As if the Muslim Brotherhood electoral victories across the region over the last two years were not enough!

After 9/11 we searched for the answer to “why they hate us?” It’s who we are and not what we do that’s the problem, whether in Boston, Benghazi, or Damascus. As long as America continues to stand for freedom, equality, protection of the weak, and religious liberty for all, we will be targeted by those who believe in the supremacy of Islam.

The only way to make Americans safe is once again to allow our military and federal law enforcement agents to study and understand the common ideological link behind all these violent events. Eight years ago the 9/11 Commission was clear: The 19 original hijackers were able to do what they did because we had failed to “connect the dots.”

Today for political reasons it’s forbidden to make those connections needed to prevent the next masscasualty attack on U.S. soil.

As long as we continue to deny the existence of the ideology that motivates the enemy, we will ­continue to fail in identifying those who wish to do us harm before they do so, and, as in Syria, we run the even greater risk of empowering those who wish to see our destruction. A —Sebastian Gorka is the Military Affairs Fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracy and teaches irregular warfare to the U.S. military and federal law enforcement. The views above do not reflect the views of the Department of Defense or any other government body. He can be reached at seb.gorka@gmail.com.

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

Redeemed and restored Don Goodman

A son finds reconciliation with his father after conversion to Christianity rended them apart

by Jeff Koch

>>

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Sept. 13-14: The Western Wall of the ancient Jewish temple packed with people praying and sometimes placing petitions to God on tiny scraps of paper that they insert between the wall’s huge stones.

In 1989 Thomas Boehm stood there and asked two questions: “Who are you, God? And who am I?” Black-clad orthodox Jews surrounded him, swaying and bobbing in prayer. Thomas sang a single line of Jewish prayer that he’d memorized in the synagogue as a child: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God.

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The Lord alone.” He sang it over and over, losing himself in the melody and rhythm.

Like a GPS fixing coordinates, he suddenly saw his life as a point in the broad sweep of history, part of an ancient yet living past.

Boehm had arrived at the wall a 20-something kid from America. He left as a Jew. And five years later, in 1994, he became a Jewish Christian. shalom: Boehm had recently finished Thomas graduate school and launched a (right) and thriving counseling practice, his father, but he hungered for something Frank.

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Notebook > Lifestyle



STILL REVVED UP A recent National Public Radio story suggested that America’s love affair with the car has come to an end. It concluded with these words: “What we’re seeing now is a move of the car out of people’s hearts and into the garage—perhaps where they should have been all along.”

Maybe. But on Aug. , on a section of Woodward Avenue stretching from just north of Detroit to Pontiac,  miles away, more than a million car lovers and , classic vehicles converged for the th annual Woodward Dream Cruise.

Like a scene from the movie American Graffiti, souped-up ’s-era Fords and Chevys, and latermodel Camaros, Barracudas, Corvettes, and Thunderbirds rumbled down the highway. Model A’s, Packards, and MG Midgets mixed with other long-extinct car species: Buick Skylarks, Ford Edsels, and Dodge Coronets. Before traffic slowed to a crawl, muscle cars peeled out of gas stations.

Most of the stores lining Woodward closed for the weekend, and knowledgeable spectators set up picnic canopies and lawn chairs from which to view the passing parade of cars cruising the eight-lane road—four lanes in each direction with a boulevard down the middle. Gleaming vehicles in parking lots sat with open hoods, showing off their engines.

Free for both drivers and spectators, the Dream Cruise advertises itself as an alcohol-free family event, but it seems to have a special appeal to people who came of driving age in the ’s and ’s.

Although Dream Cruise is largely nonpolitical, some messages did appear. One Galaxy  carried a sign saying, “I built it, not Obama.” A big truck displayed large pictures of aborted babies and a sign saying, “Register and Vote Pro-life. Prov. :.”

—Susan Olasky

—Jeff Koch is a graduate of the World Journalism Institute’s midcareer training course

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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: MARTA NARDINI/GETTY IMAGES & KRIEG BARRIE

Frank Boehm was devastated and “felt a wall” come crashing down between them. A family member told Thomas, “I’ve only seen your dad cry three times— once when his mom died, once when his dad died, and the night you shared your faith.” Thomas recalls that his new believer zeal didn’t always foster productive dialogue. During one conversation, his dad slammed his hand down on the counter and yelled, “If you think I’m going to hell because I don’t believe in your Jesus, well that’s where your grandmother is and that’s where your grandfather is so I’ll be glad to go there!”

Moments like these kept Thomas praying. Neither father nor son gave up. Compelled to understand his son better, Frank became a student of biblical history. He learned that Jesus and all His early followers were Jewish. Over time, the father became impressed with his son’s integrity and compassion for others. Summing up his current opinion,  years in the making, Frank beamed with pride and declared: “A man couldn’t ask for a finer son.”

The dramatic quality of their reconciliation has recently taken a more public turn. Thomas takes time out from his doctoral work at Vanderbilt to travel with his father to speak in churches. Their mission: to galvanize support for Israel, and demonstrate the power and importance of personal reconciliation. As part of their presentation, Thomas robustly offers his testimony of faith. His dad hears it every time, no longer wincing, but with a hard-won appreciation of his son’s journey. Thankful and amazed, Thomas offers the following insight: “Those things we most fear losing, God most delights to redeem and restore.”

PAUL WARNER/GETTY IMAGES

more. Then he met some friends who boldly told him Jesus fulfilled all the Jewish hopes and promises. Boehm stayed up the entire night bombarding them with questions, after which they gave him a Bible—which “became food to my soul, and I was ravenous.”

Three months later, he committed to following Jesus and took communion on Easter Sunday.

After professing faith, Boehm dreaded telling his dad, knowing it would be like “putting a dagger in his heart.” His dad, Frank Boehm, soon to become president of the Jewish Federation in Nashville, lamented, “We Jews have been put through hell because of Jesus Christ. We’ve been slaughtered, villainized, stigmatized, beaten, maimed, and desecrated in his name.”

Frank Boehm believed that personally. He associated Christianity with Nazi Germany; relatives had died in the Holocaust. Growing up, he had encountered anti-Semitic jibes ranging from accusations of deicide (“You killed Christ!”) to common bigotry (“I’m sorry, my parents won’t let me date a Jew.”) to menacing threats (“Hey, Hitler missed a few … should have killed you, too.”).

When asked recently whether he remembered the day his son first shared his faith, Frank Boehm stopped midstride: “Oh yes. There are a few moments in life where you remember every detail. … Tommy telling me his beliefs was one of those moments.” At the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta with family and friends, the senior Boehm had just ordered a bottle of champagne when Thomas blurted out, “Dad, I’ve become a believer.” Frank Boehm stared blankly at his son, without the faintest idea what he meant. Thomas clarified, “I’ve accepted Y’shua—Jesus—as my Savior.”

Notebook > Technology

Tracking device

Don’t panic, but your smartphone photos have geographic tags attached

BY DANIEL JAMES DEVINE

>>

PAUL WARNER/GETTY IMAGES

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: MARTA NARDINI/GETTY IMAGES & KRIEG BARRIE

A  NBC    from  made new rounds on Facebook recently. It explained how smartphone photos embedded with GPS coordinates could inadvertently reveal a child’s location on an internet map. “The technology allows strangers to cherry-pick from online pictures posted all over the Web and then find the home, work, or even school of that person in the pic,” the announcer warned.

Although the fear factor was exaggerated, the warning remains partially accurate. It’s true that smartphones (and some tablets) record GPS location data in digital photos, along with other attached “metadata.” This otherwise invisible data may include date, time, exposure details, search tags, or copyright info. Professional photographers consider the metadata essential for reviewing or organizing their pictures, and preventing online distribution of their work without credit.

The question is whether a stranger can use GPS metadata in an online photo to discover where it was taken. The answer is yes, but only depending on the website where you’ve uploaded your photos.

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter all automatically erase metadata when you upload a photo—although they give you

the option to publicly tag the photo’s location first. (In which case, you’re giving away your location willingly.)

Other sites leave the metadata attached, but offer the option to hide geographic information. These include Google+, Flickr, and Photobucket. For other photo-sharing sites, you should check the privacy policy. Some sites may publicly post metadata along with your photo, though it won’t be obvious since the info is embedded in the picture.

In a day when a simple Google search of your name and state of residence can instantly reveal your home address, hiding photo location data might be a futile exercise. It seems to be more of a concern if you have some reason for keeping your whereabouts secret. Journalists from Vice accidentally revealed the Guatemalan hideout of John McAfee, the eccentric founder of the antivirus company, last December after he fled a murder investigation in Belize. The publication posted an iPhone photo of him online without expunging the metadata.

If you’re worried, you can easily turn off your phone or tablet’s location tagging function. For iPhones and iPads, find the option at Settings/Privacy/Location Services. For Android devices, go to Settings/Location Services.

FACEBOOK BLUES

Young adults become sadder the more they use Facebook, according to a new study in PLOS ONE. Researchers from the University of Michigan asked Facebook users in a series of online questionnaires (five per day for two weeks) how they felt and whether they were satisfied with life. The results showed that browsing Facebook predicted a subsequent decline in self-satisfaction, and the more often young adults used the social network, the less happy they felt.

Other studies have found a similar link between Facebook and negative feelings. What’s the cause?

Some researchers have suggested scrolling through our friends’ profiles and status updates provokes envy. An informal poll of my own Facebook friends backs that conclusion: “You find old classmates and see their lives as ‘perfect,’ and it makes you feel bad about your own,” said one. Another added: “Facebook is like looking at a highlights reel, and then comparing it to the real thing. Comparison is the thief of joy.” —D.J.D.

Email: ddevine@worldmag.com

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SEPTEMBER 21, 2013 • WORLD

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9/2/13 2:09 PM

Notebook > Science

Heat seekers

The UN is preparing to release another alarmist climate change review BY DANIEL JAMES DEVINE

  Computer climate models attempt to predict climate change by accurately replicating aspects of the real-world environment, such as ice cover, CO levels, or sea temperature. But when the models overlook a significant environmental variable, they produce wrong results.

German researchers, publishing in Nature Geoscience, have found such an oversight. Melting glaciers in Greenland are thought to contribute one-quarter of the observed sea level rise each year, but a little-recognized process proves the melting isn’t all due to hot air: Beneath Greenland—an ,-square-mile, ice-covered island—the Earth’s crust is unusually thin, and heat from the core is helping melt glaciers from the bottom up.

The crust temperature also seems to vary from place to place, presenting a complex thermal distribution system for future climate modelers to wrangle with. —D.J.D.

Highly Medicaided The inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services is investigating the heavy use of antipsychotic drugs among children enrolled in Medicaid, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Prescriptions of antipsychotics used to treat conditions like depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD, or irritability in Medicaid patients under —including thousands under —tripled between  and .

A study of  data showed children were four times more likely to take antipsychotics under Medicaid than under other insurance programs. Some experts are worried doctors too often prescribe drugs instead of using therapy to address emotional problems. An August study also found that childhood use of antipsychotic drugs triples risk for Type  diabetes. —D.J.D.

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WORLD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

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GLOBE: ALTOCLASSIC/ISTOCK • GREENLAND: JAMES BALOG/EXTREME ICE SURVEY/AP • PILLS: CHELNOK/ISTOCK

The absence could be due to a dip in the solar cycle that affected Earth temperature, unexpected ocean heat absorption, or the annoying possibility the Earth is less sensitive to atmospheric CO than scientists predicted. The panel is also giving a more conservative prediction of future warming than its previous report had offered.

The panel’s report will be the primary goad used to pressure UN members to sign on to a climate treaty. Oddly, the very governments the report is supposed to influence will have the opportunity to tweak the language of the draft during the September meeting, amplifying or downplaying its claims. Former members of the UN panel have admitted the reports have become politicized to advance a larger goal: a treaty in which developing nations would extract payments from Western nations in exchange for emissions cuts.

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9/3/13 10:05 AM

MICHAEL CONROY/AP

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W: Climate alarm about to sound. An international panel of hundreds of scientists is due to present a major report on global warming to world leaders in late September.

A leaked copy of the draft suggests the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations agency in charge of the report, will press its hardest case ever to blame warming on human activity and urge multibillion-dollar mitigation efforts.

The IPCC has written four other climate reports since , the most recent in , when the panel asserted it was  percent certain humans were the primary cause of global warming.

In the new report, the authors have ratcheted their certainty level up to  percent. They predict sea levels will rise somewhere between  inches and  feet by the end of the century.

To the panel’s embarrassment, though, a relative lack of warming since  is forcing it to offer theoretical explanations for the missing heat.

Notebook > Houses of God

Bradley United Methodist Church

in Greenfield, Ind. Holding summer services on a well-stocked, 10-acre fishing lake puts new churchgoers at ease and makes them more receptive to gospel teaching, says senior pastor Wade Compton.

Plus, they get two hours of free catch-and-release fishing following the service.

Michael Conroy/ap

globe: AltoClassic/istock • greenland: James Balog/Extreme Ice Survey/ap • pills: Chelnok/istock

The “fishing church” is an outreach program of the

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Falling Angel The JOSH HAMILTON saga, part three

BY ZACHARY ABATE

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

WORLD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

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way out thanks to his faith in Christ.

(See “Second chance,” March , , and “Dramatic swings,” July , .)

Angels coaches and scouts around the league have watched hours of video, trying to decipher how one of baseball’s most feared sluggers became the Angels’ disappointing  million man. Hamilton’s fly balls don’t travel as far as they did last year, and his patience at the plate has never been a strength—he’s swung at  pitches out of the strike zone this season.

And of course, there’s the Juice Lady diet. The popular theory regarding Hamilton’s decline centers on a gluten-free diet, consisting mostly of fruit and vegetables juices, that helped Hamilton lose  pounds during the offseason. Perhaps Hamilton lost the

  The National Football League agreed to a 

million settlement with , former players who say the league concealed research showing the effects of head injuries. In what some called a victory for the NFL, the league will pay no more than  million to players who have been diagnosed with a cognitive illness (Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, etc.) and no more than  million to families of players who committed suicide. The settlement also includes funding for medical exams and concussion-related research.

HAMILTON: BRANDON WADE/GETTY IMAGES • HELMET: JASON LUGO/E+/GETTY IMAGES

D   stood in line outside a downtown Disney restaurant in December, waiting to get a glimpse of newly signed slugger Josh Hamilton, and maybe even get an autograph from the  MVP. Sitting next to his wife, Katie, and their four young daughters, Hamilton donned the red Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim jersey and faced a crowd of reporters.

“I’m so excited to hear an organization say we’re happy we got you, no matter what the risk is,” said Hamilton.

The comment was a thinly veiled jab at his former team, the Texas Rangers, who shied away from re-signing the outfielder. Instead, the Angels offered Hamilton a five-year,  million deal—the second highest annual average salary in baseball.

Now, as Hamilton’s first full season with the Angels comes to an end, the Rangers’ reluctance to offer a mega-contract appears wise. Hamilton is batting just . and is on pace for a career low in home runs for a full season. It’s been a miserable year for the player who after years of battling addictions to drugs and alcohol, found his

body mass that allowed him to muscle the ball over ballpark walls.

Or maybe the problem is simply Los Angeles. The -year-old enjoyed support in Texas from teammates who kept him away from temptation—when the Rangers won the  ALCS, the team celebrated with ginger ale instead of champagne—to a manager, Ron Washington, who spent hours talking over issues with Hamilton.

Regardless of the reason for his decline this season, Hamilton has joined a long list of players who have failed to live up to their mega-contracts and lofty expectations–this year the names of first basemen alone include Albert Pujols, Ryan Howard, and Mark Teixeira, all whom have been injured at various times. But not all mega-deals have proven a disaster for their teams— at least not yet. Joey Votto ( years,  million) has performed very well for the Cincinnati Reds; Joe Mauer ( years,  million) is the heart of the Minnesota Twins; and the Detroit Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera ( years,  million) has been the best hitter on the planet for the last two years.

The wide range of success and failure by players signed to mega-deals illustrates just how difficult it is to predict the future in sports. Teams that have made serious mistakes may now be less willing to spend hundreds of millions on one player, no matter his talent level. If small changes—like a fruit juice diet—can make such an enormous impact on a player’s performance, why should a team gamble its future on  million-plus contracts?

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9/4/13 10:56 AM

BILLS: MATTHIAS HAAS/PHOTOS.COM • MODEL S: HANDOUT

Notebook > Sports

Notebook > Money

  

Quantitative chaos The Fed’s bond-buying program is causing global currency gyrations BY WARREN COLE SMITH

CREDIT

BILLS: MATTHIAS HAAS/PHOTOS.COM • MODEL S: HANDOUT

>>

O    consequences of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s  billion a month bond-buying program called Quantitative Easing has been the havoc it has created in the international currency markets, especially in emerging countries.

On Aug. , for example, Brazil’s real hit a new low of . to the dollar.

That’s a drop of nearly  percent in the past six months. On Aug. , the Indian rupee was . to the dollar, down  percent this year. In heavily Hindu India, some are looking for supernatural explanations and saying the currency’s new symbol launched on an “inauspicious day.”

But the fault in these currencies is not in the stars but in the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. “The Fed’s actions are the prime driver” of the currency fluctuations in emerging markets, said Steve Oliner, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Artificially low interest rates pushed investors into emerging markets to get the rates of return they were used to. But now that interest rates are rising again, “you can get higher yields in the U.S. without the credit risk,”

Email: wsmith@worldmag.com

19 SPORTS and MONEY.indd 63

Oliner said. The result has been a dramatic sell-off of emerging market currencies in favor of the U.S. dollar.

Funds that buy Brazilian bonds have seen an outflow of nearly  billion since May, according to data provider EPFR Global.

And these gyrations affect more than currency speculators. They have a disproportionate impact on the poor.

“When emerging market economies slow down, the poor in those countries suffer most,” Oliner said. “They do not have the financial reserves to buffer changes in the standard of living.”

Brazil’s central bank has raised interest rates three times in the past year to fight the outflow. So far, the effect has been minimal, except to raise the cost of capital for Brazilians.

The U.S. Fed’s actions have essentially trumped all efforts of Brazilians to control their own currency.

The Fed has not said when it will start tapering its  billion per month bond-buying program. “Expect next year to be volatile in the financial markets,” Oliner said. “After all, we’re seeing all this and the Fed hasn’t actually done anything yet.”

In June, automaker Tesla Motors outsold other luxury brands in its native California with only one model: the all-electric Model S. Based on registrations, Tesla outsold Buick, Lincoln, Porsche, Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Cadillac. And this wasn’t a one-month anomaly. In the first half of , Tesla sold more vehicles in California than Land Rover, Jaguar, Lincoln, Volvo, or Porsche.

This story is significant even for those who can’t afford to spend , on a car, the sticker price of the basic Model S. The rich people buying these Teslas—“affluent thought leaders,” as Tesla calls them—are financing the development of electric cars with minimal government funding.

(In , Tesla did get a  million loan from the Department of Energy from a fund designed to accelerate electric car research. It has since repaid the loan.) Tesla’s battery pack, which analysts consider a breakthrough technology because it charges more quickly and holds a charge longer than previous technologies, is already being used in Daimler’s new two-passenger “smart car” as well as Freightliner Trucks’ electric vans.

That’s not to say that Tesla doesn’t still have a long way to go. It will likely sell only , cars nationwide, barely one-half of  percent of the car market.

Still, sales were enough to allow the company to post a first-quarter profit this year and continue development of lower-priced models, the first of which it plans to roll out in .

SEPTEMBER 21, 2013 • WORLD



9/2/13 2:38 PM

Notebook > Religion

Hijacked message?

Anniversary of the March on Washington highlights divisions over homosexuality among black leaders BY THOMAS KIDD

>>

A A  the th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered at the  March on Washington, AfricanAmerican leaders are divided over the role of gays and lesbians in the civil rights movement. The original movement of the s and ’s, bolstered by legions of Christian pastors and laypeople, focused on racial integration. Some African-American clergy were troubled over even permitting a role for the openly gay Bayard Rustin, who organized that year’s march. Today’s political climate has changed dramatically, with black leaders feeling heavy pressure to affirm gay activism.

In the lead-up to August’s commemoration, Washington mayor Vincent Gray personally retracted an invitation to Grammy award-winning gospel singer and pastor Donnie McClurkin, who was to perform at a pre-anniversary event (“Singer silenced,” Sept. ).

McClurkin is a former homosexual who now speaks about how Christ delivered him from the gay lifestyle. The disinvitation was reminiscent of pastor Louie Giglio having to withdraw from President Obama’s  inauguration, because of earlier comments Giglio



WORLD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

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  The Kentucky chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is warning the state’s school districts that they will sue those who allow the Gideons International to improperly distribute Bibles to students. The ACLU says that they have discovered that certain teachers and principals allow the Gideons, well-known for distributing Scripture to schools and hotels, to give out Bibles to entire classes, with no opportunity for other religious groups to pass out their literature. Many Kentucky districts have no written policy about how to handle requests from groups like the Gideons, the ACLU asserts. They charge that the Gideons have “exploited” the lack of clear procedures to find sympathetic school employees who will permit unrestricted Bible distribution.

A recent decision against the Gideons by Ontario, Canada’s Human Rights Tribunal could foreshadow a possible outcome of an ACLU lawsuit. In response to a complaint by an atheist parent, the tribunal ruled that the Niagra School District illegally allowed the Gideons to give out Bibles in schools without affording the same opportunity to other groups. When the school district asked parents’ permission to allow the Gideons to give their children a Bible, the atheist parent countered by requesting to distribute secularist books. When the district refused, the parent sued for discrimination. —T.K.

BIBLE: HANDOUT • WASHINGTON: SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

DREAM WORKS: The th anniversary of the March on Washington on Aug. 28.

made about the sinfulness of homosexual acts.

The issue of gay advocacy is particularly difficult among African-American Christians, who tend to be politically liberal but socially conservative on issues such as sexuality. W. Franklyn Richardson of the National Action Network, which organized this year’s March on Washington, argues that black Christians can agree to disagree on homosexuality. Gay and lesbian groups participated in the march’s ceremonies, Richardson acknowledged, but he insisted that the event was “not a platform to advance anybody’s agenda.”

Traditionalist black Christians contend that gay activism and civil rights represent starkly different issues. In a much-discussed  article for The Gospel Coalition, pastor Voddie Baucham of Spring, Texas, said that “gay is not the new black,” because while ethnicity was involuntary, homosexuality entailed choices and actions. Conservative writer Star Parker, responding to the Donnie McClurkin controversy, called on African-American Christians to “take back” civil rights from homosexual activists and secular politicians who had “hijacked” the movement.

Email: tkidd@worldmag.com

9/3/13 12:15 PM

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Mailbag ‘Blind, exiled, brave’

Aug.  One New York University professor explained that school’s persecution of Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng by saying one shouldn’t “bite the hand that feeds you.” Here’s another saying: “Money corrupts.”

—P S. R, Missoula, Mont.

‘Remembering the Forgotten War’ Aug.  Thank you for recognizing Korean War veterans and their sacrifices. They kept South Korea free, and as a result South Korean missionaries have spread the message of freedom throughout the world. God remembers.

—T.R. M, Gillette, Wyo.

My mom said Dad was different when he returned from Korea. After he died I heard from an aunt that, when the Chinese overran his base, he and another soldier survived by hiding in a frozen latrine. I often wonder whether that was a factor in his depression and drinking. While visiting the Korean War monument in Washington, I imagined Dad’s face on one of those sculptures and somehow came to know him more fully. I am proud of his service and ashamed of the way my government treated these men on their return.

—C R-B, Pisgah Forest, N.C.

‘From politics to education’ Aug.  It is nice to hear positive things going on in the world around us, but we really need to hear the news, gloomy or not.

—J F, Phoenixville, Pa.

Jesus, through the church, is the answer to all social problems. Why then do we blame the heathen for our nation’s problems? If the church is the “salt of the earth” and the “light unto

Send photos and letters to: mailbag@worldmag.com

19 MAILBAG.indd 67

the world,” have we lost our saltiness and has our light gone dim?

—G S, Midland, Mich.

No one should begrudge our president and first lady for seeking the best possible education for their children; the tragedy is their apparent reluctance to support other families seeking such opportunities. But with dedicated parents and new technologies, academic excellence in a grace-filled environment remains within the grasp of millions of families.

—M J. K, Portland, Ore.

‘Cut it off?’

Aug.  So many Christians resist even small “self-performed surgeries” to avoid impurity. Pornography is a huge problem in churches, but suggest that men trade in their smartphones for ones without internet access and people say you’re crazy.

—S DG, Harrisburg, Pa.

I liked Andrée Seu Peterson’s illustration about how, when prohibiting grandchildren from playing on railroad tracks,  percent compliance is not an option. I have a new take on my persistent failures and no more excuses for them.

—R A, Rohnert Park, Calif.

Like the elderly ladies in Peterson’s church, I too have “opposite-sex

attractions.” I was wondering where her church is so that I might visit. I know many ladies my age are looking for a mate, but it is a task to find one serious about Christ, conservative, and interested in a -year-old widower.

—A.J. W, Cleveland, Wis.

‘Not only in Vegas’ Aug.  I agree; legalizing prostitution would only make it worse. The Bible commands us not to put a stumbling block in our neighbor’s way. Will the so-called libertarians encourage true liberty or sinful slavery?

—A (T) B, Martinsburg, W.Va.

I just returned from Las Vegas, and it bruises my heart to be propositioned by young girls on the street. We need not more freedoms or more laws governing behavior but, as Janie Cheaney often says, changed hearts. Free people must govern themselves.

—J C, Atlanta, Ga.

‘Free retainer’ Aug.  Recently while I was teaching a class involving God’s heart for the “fatherless and the widows,” someone asked how to know whether charities are accomplishing God’s purposes. I described how WORLD highlights mostly unknown organizations that are doing it right. Someone wrote me to say how, when they read about “how much people are pouring out their lives, you realize how much more you could be doing with your own life and resources.” Thanks for challenging all of us.

—R. W, Silver Spring, Md.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2013 • WORLD



9/2/13 2:22 PM

Mailbag ‘A place at the table’ Aug.  You did not mention that Christine Quinn, the frontrunner in the New York mayoral race, is a lesbian who “married” her long-time girlfriend last year. That is significant regarding her opposition to Christians trying to rent school facilities for their worship services.

—D A. W, Fort Worth, Texas

‘Old men can win’ Aug.  You state that “only five golfers have ever achieved a career Grand Slam” but fail to mention Bobby Jones. The term “Grand Slam” was first used in golf because in  he won all four major championships (the British and U.S. Open and Amateur tournaments) in the same calendar year.

—P W, Tallahassee, Fla.

MONROVIA, LIBERIA submitted by Mike Prom

Dispatches Aug.  WORLD is consistently keeping our attention focused on the issues in our country that resemble pre–World War II Germany, like Hobby Lobby’s fight against insurance laws and many others. However, the issue is less about keeping freedoms than about remaining faithful followers of Christ.

—J H, Allahabad, India

‘Remember the signs’

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July  Having worked with the problem of sexual sin in our counseling program for over  years, I couldn’t agree more. I fear that the idea of cheap grace and the therapeutic culture, which treats sexual addiction as a disease, are as serious a threat to our faith as persecution was to the early Christians.

—H S, Port Washington, Wis.

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Organizations like the Gay Christian Network take the commands to love God and our neighbor and then define love with no reference to the rules God gave us. Unfortunately, too many Christians, tired of being vilified, let them do it and so fail to help them find the eternal love of Christ Jesus.

—S M. F S., Mt. Pleasant, S.C.

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‘A lesson from Iraq’ July 27 I very much appreciate Mindy Belz’s columns. Her style is easy to read and she has so much useful information about the world, particularly the Middle East.

—Kathy Barrett, Gaston, Ind.

‘Blood on the streets’ July 27 I grieved with Diane Jimenez over the babies that would be aborted after school was out at Biola University, but isn’t she fighting the symptoms rather than the disease?

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Dispatches July 13 I noticed the large photo of Brazilians protesting against corruption and other problems. Few people know (because the media failed to report it) that tens of thousands of evangelicals peacefully gathered during those same weeks to protest same-sex marriage and abortion.

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‘Unfinished song’ July 13 I recently went to see Unfinished Song and loved it! Congo Dawn (Spotlight, May 4) was a thoroughly enjoyable read. Thanks for making me aware of so many books, TV shows, and movies over the years that I would never have discovered on my own.

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Correction Tiger Woods has won three Open Championships in Britain (“Old men can win,” Aug. 10, p. 64).

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I miss taboos And the protection and simplicity they once provided

>>

KRIEG BARRIE

I     mainly attended by middle-aged women but also by a moppyhaired -something male who was friendly and engaging. After a while I noticed a vague anxiety in myself, which I finally put my finger on: Another presence had entered the room besides the  of us: a spoiler of innocence and a stowaway from hell on the ship of civilization as we know it.

Or knew it. Francis Schaeffer said rightly that the die was cast in our grandparents’ time. The wonder is actually that morality hangs on as long as it does after God has been banished. Then comes the fateful day when, without outward signal, all parties seem to realize the implications at once.

Like the carnival tamer presiding nightly over compliant tigers, until the night they all happen to notice simultaneously the quivering rope in the hand, the fact that there are  of them and one of him. Once the first cat slides off the stool, the others are held back by nothing.

It’s the nothing that’s getting to me in this room.

No bottom to this floor, no walls to get the reassuring feel of. Where everything is possible, and nothing automatically off limits, thoughts cross the mind that never dawned on one in a million in our parents’ day; nor could they. That was the power of taboo.

Taboo: “a ban or inhibition resulting from social custom or emotional aversion.” Taboo was a good thing, I am now seeing.

It was protection in its day. Not only for pretty little girls from their fathers, and for wives whose husbands had attractive secretaries. Taboo had conferred another benefit, too: No middle-aged woman at a convivial café had to worry that the young man was not mistaking our hovering around him as flirtation. And no lone young male who came out of interest in philosophy had to worry that the women’s attention was not flirtation.

Satan never gives anything without taking something away; in a bargain you are always the loser. Simplicity is the casualty. From here on in no encounter is “understood”; every meeting is ever so slightly charged, every conversation laden with baggage, every introduction arriving with an extra issue to establish: A man seats himself near a woman on a plane; or a man with a man; or woman with woman; or fortyish female with a male her son’s age.

No ground rules here. We deal with things no one

Email: aseupeterson@worldmag.com

19 SEU PETERSON.indd 71

should have to deal with on a daily basis. I wonder, did anybody foresee that this would be the downside of our merry liberation?

Taboo used to simplify life, and that was nice. You could ask probing questions of the college kid next door and be thought motherly. When the plumber came on house calls the focus was purely the clogged bathtub drain. No inkling of a subtext. We took it for granted. Nor did we wonder at the marvelous power of psychological mechanics behind the fact that a boy will, generally speaking, not find his sister “hot” even if every other guy in high school does.

One’s mind didn’t “go there,” and the whole culture backed it up. There are thoughts so horrendous that God Himself has never entertained them. One is child sacrifice: “And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind” (Jeremiah :).

This is the real “climate change”—not meteorology but spirituality. In former salubrious climes it was taboo for men to sleep with men. Now it is taboo for men to sleep with -year-old boys, but only for another week and a half. Closing in on us, the circus ring features lipstick-smeared cougars, and the high-school teachers with their fangs that prey, and the sideshow Columbia University professor bedding his daughter with impunity before the community.

And every new report registers in the mind indelible images and pollutes the atmosphere by another imperceptible degree.

I miss taboos. I wish we had them back. A

SEPTEMBER 21, 2013 • WORLD



9/2/13 2:17 PM

Marvin Olasky

Crossed-up career

But even a washed-up celeb can find the promise of a new season

>>

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WORLD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

19 OLASKY.indd 72

ERICH SCHLEGEL/AP

S- Christopher Cross at age  has on his website an impressive listing of accomplishments: five Grammy Awards, one Oscar, one Golden Globe Award. The problem—if it is a problem—is that he won all those in  and  based on his debut album (which included “Ride Like the Wind” and “Sailing”) and his debut movie song, “Arthur’s Theme,” from the hit film comedy with Dudley Moore, Arthur.

Cross has continued to compose and sing over the past three decades—eight albums,  songs,  gigs per year—but without king-sized kudos. The New York Daily News cruelly described his career: “top of the music charts, then drop down to Nowheresville, U.S.A., in the wink of an eye.” A New Jersey newspaper reported that an airport ID checker looked at the singer’s license and said, “Oh, Christopher Cross.

There was a musician by that name. He died a few years ago. It’s a shame. He was pretty good.”

Some music historians speculate that technology killed Cross: The nontelegenic Cross couldn’t make the transition to the MTV-music-video era, which elevated looks over talent. Whatever the cause, the singer’s bright morning and long evening reminds me of how the NCAA men’s basketball tournament each year ends with “One Shining Moment,” a song tinged with melancholy: “One shining moment, you knew you were alive.” (But who wants to peak at age ?)

I went to a Cross concert at a small venue in Austin, Texas, to enjoy the music and to see how time has treated him. Cross’ songs suggest sadness: “What ever happened to me / Maybe I’ve been living on lies …

Now the years all slip away / And things are like they’re gonna stay.” He sings of how he “woke up to my world this morning / Took a long look in the looking glass / Last night I guess I had one or too many / Somebody tried to tell me I had no class.”

Cross is divorced, with two children, and some autobiographical elements may pop up in his lyrics: “Shouldn’t have been so stuck on my own … Should’ve

made that house a home.” In “It’s Always Something,” he wonders “if they’ll even notice when I’m gone. I wonder if they’ll even care.” He contemplates suicide: “The taste of cold steel on my lips / The rope around my neck / These bitter pills and razorblades seal my fate.” But at song’s end he recovers: “Another voice whispers / This is not your choice / There is more to this if you hold on.”

Other clues come from concert demeanor.

Reviewers have regularly put into words what I sensed as well: “He looked downright somber. …

Gloomy Cross … took potshots at himself, even calling attention to his ‘hasbeen’ status.” The best evidence, though, comes from Cross’ own words in interviews: “My fall from grace was traumatizing, very hard to deal with and very disappointing and disillusioning. Success is like money—it’s much harder to have it and then not have it than never to have it at all.” Now, he says, his reminder of past and present comes when some “sweet young thing” asks him for an autograph for her grandmother, an ardent fan.

Christopher Cross, despite his first name and surname, showed no indication in Austin of faith in Christ. He and all of us need to combine the familiar words of chapter  of Ecclesiastes—“For everything there is a season … a time to be born, and a time to die”—with those at the Bible’s conclusion in Revelation  and . That’s where God promises to “wipe away every tear” and create a new heaven and a new earth with a tree of life yielding fruit each month: no more barren seasons.

Maybe Cross is starting to get it. His latest album, Doctor Faith, has a last song, “Prayin’” that includes these lines: “Frozen in time while the calendar pages / Are falling like leaves from a tree / Getting the sense I’m connected to something / And not sure what’s happening to me.” He says he was once “A Catholic school kid in thrall to the altar / The rituals moved me somehow / I left it behind when I learned how to think / So it’s funny that suddenly now—I’m prayin’ … deep in my soul / Prayin’ / Tryin’ to surrender control / ’Cause thoughts in my head keep me in hell.” A

Email: molasky@worldmag.com

9/4/13 8:55 AM

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