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SEPTEMBER 24, 2011 / VOLUME 26 / NUMBER 19
CONTENTS F E AT UR E S
34 Hiring on hold
COVER STORY Facing an uncertain future and a mountain of regulations, small businesses lack the confidence to grow SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS: Christian programs are working hard to help their students become employable and, in some cases, employed
42 Econ 101
Teaching about money shouldn’t wait until high school or college—and it’s inner-city schools and a new economics program that are leading the way to elementary financial literacy
46 Calm amidst the storm
Hurricane Irene’s many victims rely on volunteer cleanup crews even as they ready for the next possible storm
50 Food, water, & some rain needed
Victims of the Horn of Africa famine aren’t through suffering
52 Educational pioneers
African-American homeschooling is on the rise
56 It’s not about the dream
VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer turns to a jellyfish for new inspiration, new ventures, and a new way of doing business
5
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Godly training to meet harsh economic reality is here S P.D. in economic development from the University of Virginia. She has lectured on the subject around the world. When she discusses the topic, her sophisticated understanding and vocabulary could easily leave a listener in the dark. But when Amy Sherman wants to take the economic temperature of a particular city, town, or neighborhood, she uses a remarkably simple tool. She just drives around and counts storefronts. In one particular Memphis neighborhood, she told me, you’ll find payday lenders, six car title loan stores, three rent-to-own stores, and four pawn shops. And right down that street there is Mo’ Money Tax Services, a business that entices low-income patrons with the promise of immediate tax refunds—but offsets that benefit with exorbitant interest rates. So, Amy Sherman. If you had to choose in the next few minutes where you want to spend the rest of your career, helping folks understand the complexities of economic theory, where would it be? In a university classroom with some bright grad students? Or in an elementary school setting in a neighborhood like the one you described in Memphis, helping third graders understand the nitty-gritty basics of how dollars behave? “I don’t like having to make that choice,” she tells me. “I’ve always seen myself as a scholar-practitioner—one foot in policy, with the other in practice. I hope I can keep it that way.” That’s the way, I think to myself, it should be for every follower of Jesus. Word and deed people—never just abstract ideas, and never just random acts of kindness. The two always need to be wrapped up with each ot her. As a other. friend told me years ago, “The deeds are there to validate our words. The words are there to explain our deeds.” Amy Sherman is just one of a team of thoughtful activists who (as described on page ) have become very serious about passing on Email: jbelz@worldmag.com
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sound economic theory to another generation. In this column last December, I told you readers how we at have become concerned about good elementary education in the area of economics—and I asked you to send me some of your best ideas. More than of you responded, and I thank you all for a wealth of material. But Sherman put me in touch with an effort that is going well beyond the realm of ideas. The folks with whom she is working have their theoretic act together (it seems to me), but are working out that theory in real life as well. That word and deed combination is impressive. Amy Sherman’s earliest interest in such issues was sparked by an th grade short-term missions trip to rural Appalachia, where she got her first exposure to poverty. “I helped put some roofs on houses,” she recalls, “and knew this would be central to my life’s work.” But it didn’t take long for her to discover that just going back to the field year after year—which she did—wasn’t enough. (She’s supportive of short-term missions efforts—but only as long as participants realize it’s more about stretching their own hearts and vision than it is to provide significant help for the poor). Big-hearted relief, by itself, doesn’t solve the problems. She developed a growing appetite to discover how economic systems work and how defective systems can be changed. And now she’s zealous as well to help even little kids develop both heads and hearts for the practice of biblically sound economic understanding. If done well, she thinks, that will include a strong dose of free market economics that appreciates freedom and opportunity. But it will also stress what it means to be a citizen in God’s kingdom and point out to young students the excesses of consumerism and materialism. All this, and more, will be spelled out in her new book, Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good, to be released this fall by InterVarsity Press. The message there will be for adults rather than little kids. But it will stress the need for employing both godly heads and godly hearts as we pursue economic realities. A SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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Blue Nile bomb runs NEWS: Fighting only grows in contested areas of Sudan BY MINDY BELZ
>>
I A residents of Blue Nile State in Sudan elected Malik Agar their governor, the only one of elected governors for thennorthern Sudan to come from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (), the political wing of the former rebel army that successfully fought for South Sudan independence. Agar beat out a candidate from the National Congress Party () of President Omar al-Bashir. It was a significant victory: Agar is a Muslim who fought alongside South
Sudan’s founding rebel leader, John Garang, who was a Christian. Agar is widely regarded as one of the elder statesmen of the movement toward formation of the Republic of South Sudan, which took place formally in July—and found him head of a state now in NEW FIGHTING: the Muslim Sudanese soldiers rest north. after gaining Before Agar’s control of election, heads Damazine (top); of the and Agar (right).
had pledged to accept the election results at all levels in the country—paving the way for what many hoped would be the triumph of the electoral process over the civil war that had defined Sudan for the last years. Agar was poised to be the face for a new era. Now, months later, the governor has gone missing. The northern army, known as the , on Sept. SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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9/6/11 12:04 PM
Dispatches > News
In what could be the first step toward civilian rule after Egypt’s military took control of the country following the end of Hosni Mubarak’s regime in February, an electoral commission is expected to convene on Sept. to prepare voting rosters and candidate lists ahead of a November election.
LOOKING AHEAD Autumn begins Sun-weary residents of the American Midwest will be anticipating the promise of cooler weather when autumn begins on Sept. . Weather stations in Texas and Oklahoma recorded as many as days of -degree heat this summer as well as consecutive days above in Dallas.
Ig Nobel Prizes
‘Elections’ in the UAE
On Sept. , for only the second time in the United Arab Emirates, voters will head to the polls for elections. Not that the process will be terribly democratic. The voters will be selected by local rulers and will only be allowed to select half of the members of a national advisory board with limited powers.
Academics will gather at Harvard University on Sept. for the presentation of the Ig Nobel Prizes—satirical awards honoring “improbable research.” Last year, scientists from the United Kingdom and Mexico won the Ig Nobel’s prize in engineering for perfecting a non-invasive way to collect whale snot—by helicopter.
Tevatron closes
The doors close Sept. at the Tevatron—a massive particle accelerator located west of Chicago. The .-mile particle accelerator cost million to build in and has been accelerating and colliding protons and antiprotons ever since. In , physicists at the Tevatron announced their discovery of the so-called “top quark”—a primary building block of matter.
Retiring mandatory retirement
Beginning Oct. , -year-olds in the United Kingdom may stay at work. Prior to the repeal of the mandatory retirement laws, older employees could face severance without cause simply because of their age. The Tory government, which oversaw the repeal, called the default retirement age discriminatory.
EGYPT: KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • THERMOMETER: TIM BOYLE/GETTY IMAGES • UAE ELECTIONS: KAMRAN JEBREILI/AP • IG NOBEL: STAN HONDA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • TEVATRON: BRIAN POWERS/© BEACON NEWS/SUN TIMES MEDIA/AP UK WORKER: / EMPPL PA WIRE/AP
attacked his residence and headquarters in Blue Nile’s capital city, Damazin, and struck at soldiers affiliated with the . In recent weeks Agar has warned that government forces had deployed new military units to Blue Nile in what looked like buildup just this conflict. By Sept. spokesman Yassar Arman said soldiers controlled Damazin and were continuing to fight both forces and civilians. President Bashir announced a state of emergency in Blue Nile and said he was replacing Agar with a governor from his own party, garrison commander Yahya Mohmamed Kheir. Arman told reporters that Agar “is safe” but warned that civilians in Blue Nile are not. He said forces are committing atrocities and continuing a bombing campaign in Blue Nile to instill fear in a populace that’s mostly sided with the south. Those tactics are similar to Bashirordered attacks in other contested areas. Throughout the summer, fighters have intensified attacks first in the border area of Abyei, followed by South Kordofan, where attacks on the Nuba people have left over , displaced and alarming evidence of mass graves. officials reported that since Sept. over , residents from Blue Nile have fled to nearby Ethiopia. U.S. workers in the region also find themselves at risk in southern Blue Nile, an area that is predominantly Christian and figured heavily in fighting leading up to the ceasefire. AIM Air quickly evacuated some medical workers as fighting commenced on Sept. but others have opted to stay. One reported that Sudanese living in Damazin as well as Kurmuk and Yabus “are hiding in the bushes with no belongings and worried about their children and what has become of their homes.” Another, a doctor, reported treating - wounded soldiers at a time amid heavy fighting, as well as civilians, including one girl who had to have her leg amputated after she was hit by an aerial bomb from planes. Medical workers also reported the death of a man hit by a bomb while riding on his donkey near Kurmuk, his child now missing. With fighting growing along strategic border areas of Sudan, the fighting in Blue Nile could launch the region into full-scale war. A
Egyptian transition
WORLD SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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Dispatches > News
Qaddafi’s arsenal
Down to business
Smell a rathole? Solyndra, a California-based solar panel producer that received more than half a billion dollars in federal loan guarantees, closed its doors last month and filed for bankruptcy protection in a major setback for the Obama administration’s renewable energy initiatives. Key financial backer and billionaire George Kaiser is a top Democratic donor, and Solyndra was the first company to receive federal loan guarantees under the Obama administration. Lawmakers are investigating the White House’s involvement in awarding the Department of Energy funds to Solyndra, a company they say was at high risk of failure. “For an administration that parades around the banner of transparency, they fought us tooth and nail all summer long in turning over relevant documents related to the credit approval, and today we found out why,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., after the company announced its closure. The Obama administration has awarded more than $38 billion in loan guarantees to other renewable energy companies, but the Government Accountability Office found last year that the administration hadn’t properly assessed the risk of five of the companies, Solyndra among them. Taxpayers are unlikely to recover the $535 million in loan guarantees.
pessimism polled
More than half of americans disapprove of the job president barack obama is doing, a Wall Street Journal/NBC news poll of 1,000 adults taken aug. 27-31 showed. It found that 44 percent of americans approve of obama’s work as president, with 51 percent disapproving—for the first time since his inauguration. about 73 percent polled said the country is headed in the wrong direction, a level of pessimism not found since late 2008, as the financial crisis struck. and over 70 percent of those surveyed said the economy hasn’t yet hit bottom.
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Moderator Robby George and historian Newt Gingrich won a Sept. 5 GOP presidential candidate forum in Columbia, S.C., that gave candidates significant chunks of time to answer often complex questions. Hosts at the forum organized by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., didn’t ask the five invited candidates if they preferred American Idol or Dancing With the Stars (à la the CNN debate); instead, George, Princeton’s conservative professor, asked tough questions about religious freedom and whether Congress should abide by Supreme Court decisions that violate the 14th Amendment’s guarantees of due process and equal protection. Along the way Michele Bachmann said she would try to abolish the Department of Education, and Ron Paul said he would end income taxes and close all U.S. military bases overseas. Mitt Romney assessed the Obama presidency: “I don’t think I’ve seen an administration that has gone further afield from the Constitution.” The forum was supposed to be Rick Perry’s debate debut, but the new frontrunner and Texas governor withdrew from the event to tend to a wildfire crisis in his home state.
NATO warplanes struck the hometown of Muammar Qaddafi 52 times on Sept. 4 in an apparent effort to flush out the deposed dictator as rebels cemented control of the northwestern sector of the country, once SHELL GAME: Tank shell Qaddafi’s stronghold. More quietly, officials say U.S. heads are stacked in a intelligence officers are working with rebels to locate Libyan State Industrial Qaddafi’s weapons of mass destruction arsenals. Last Complex found by rebels February a UN chemical weapons watchdog group south of Tripoli. reported tracking 9.5 tons of mustard gas in an army facility south of Tripoli. “Libya has a large stockpile of chemical weapons and explosives that must not fall into the wrong hands,” said Rep. C.A. Ruppersberger, D-Md., a member of the House Intelligence Committee.
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Take it outside
Indiana vouchers More parents are choosing to send their children to private and parochial schools in Indiana after it enacted the nation’s largest school voucher program this year: Over , students received vouchSCHOOL AID: ers to attend private schools, with Students at Our nearly percent of them attending Lady of Hungary Catholic schools. The governmentCatholic School issued certificates allow parents to in South Bend. pay private school tuition with tax money that would have gone to public schools—and that upsets Nate Schnellenberger, president of the Indiana State Teachers Association, who told the Associated Press that “public money is going to be taken from public schools, and they’re going to end up in private, mostly religious schools.” The teachers union is suing: It claims the voucher program violates “the separation of church and state” since only six of private schools in the voucher program are secular. Robert Enlow of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice called the lawsuit a “misdirection” and said parents are simply choosing available schools: “We’re giving aid to students, not aid to religion.”
The Washington Monument will remain closed indefinitely as water leaks from Hurricane Irene appear to have compounded cracks to the -foottall monument made by last month’s East Coast earthquake. That , magnitude quake, centered in Mineral, Va., created several fissures, some four feet long, in the obelisk, which first opened in . Workers sealing the cracks discovered water pooled inside the stairwell following Irene’s heavy rains in the nation’s capital. National Park Service officials have declined to say when the popular landmark will reopen.
Eviction notice In a stinging development for Anglicans in Zimbabwe, the nation’s chief justice awarded control of all Anglican Church properties to Nolbert Kunonga, an ally of President Robert Mugabe excommunicated in by the Anglican Church. Even as the diocese of Harare appealed the judge’s Aug. ruling, Kunonga moved quickly: The ex-bishop by the end of August had forcibly evicted Anglican pastors and their families from their church-owned homes. The ruling follows Mugabe’s ongoing crackdown on political opponents that increasingly is falling on churches. Diocese official Clifford Dzavo told The Zimbabwean that Kunonga’s agents severely beat one pastor during a sudden eviction. Meanwhile, Bishop of Harare Chad Gandiya said diocese leaders were trying to find new homes for evicted pastors, and wondering who would live in the church-owned properties: “This is not going to be easy at all. … God help us.”
VOUCHERS: JOE RAYMOND/AP • MONUMENT: CHARLES DHARAPAK/AP • KUNONGA: TSVANGIRAYI MUKWAZHI/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX CREDIT
If the mayor of a western Indonesian town has his way, authorities will ban Christian churches from opening on streets with Islamic names. The effort signals escalating persecution against religious minorities in the world’s largest predominantly Muslim nation. When members of the Taman Yasmin congregation tried to occupy a new building in the town of Bogor in , local residents protested and authorities blocked access to the facility. Though the Indonesian Supreme Court ruled in the church’s favor in December, Mayor Diani Budiarto refused to comply, saying he’s pushing for a national decree to ban churches from meeting on streets with Islamic names. (The congregation’s building is on Jalan Abdullah bin Nuh, a street named after an Islamic cleric.) Nearly places of worship belonging to religious minorities have faced closure in recent years, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and an Indonesia-based human rights group reports that attacks (including physical violence) against religious minorities tripled in the last two years. For now, members of Taman Yasmin continue meeting outside their building, where they’ve held weekly outdoor services for three years.
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Dispatches > News
Second chance
A mother sentenced to life without parole may have another appeal By amy mccullough
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For four years Hannah Overton, now 35, has been living at Gatesville Women’s Prison in Texas, serving the life sentence she received after the mysterious death of her 4-year-old foster child whom she was trying to adopt. Overton’s husband Larry—who pleaded no contest to criminally negligent homicide in 2008 and was sentenced to probation—sounds upbeat and said things are good for him and Hannah, who visit on weekends, and their five children, who see their mom monthly. The difficulty has brought them closer to God and each ot her, he said. Despite unsuccessful attempts in 2009 and 2010, the Overtons are again appealing Hannah’s high-profile case in which she was accused of intentionally or knowingly poisoning Andrew Burd with salt, but convicted for failing to take him to a medical facility in a timely manner (see “Unknown ingredient,” Feb. 23, 2008). Andrew was the child of a drug-abuser with undiagnosed behavioral and eating problems that led him to frequently overeat and vomit. Overton, a former licensed vocational nurse, gave Andrew some spicy, salty seasoning dissolved in water, after which he vomited and became cold. She waited until her husband came home, then decided to take him to a medical
clinic. Andrew died the next day of hypernatremia, or salt poisoning, as shown by a blood test. Since Texas law prescribes capital murder charges for the death of children under age 6 and no lesser charge options were provided to the jury, Overton received a sentence of life in prison without parole—but Larry is “pretty confident” his wife will be released in light of medical evidence presented to the court in April. Overton’s appellate counsel, Cynthia Orr, said she has now gained access to evidence that confirms her client did not give Andrew a lethal dose of salt. A lab test of Andrew’s stomach contents shows a very low sodium concentration, in contrast to the very high levels in his blood. “If she had forced him to ingest (salt), his stomach sodium levels would have been at the same level or higher (than his blood sodium level),” Orr said. “This basically proves she did not poison him.” Orr is asking the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to appoint a special master for another hearing. Orr calls the lab evidence “new” and says lead trial prosecutor Sandra Eastwood kept it from the defense during trial. Eastwood presented a different story in a July affidavit: She said the defense had knowledge of the lab
results containing Andrew’s stomach sodium levels and objected to presenting them at trial because the lab used was not certified by the state of Texas. But lead defense attorney John Gilmore said he did not recall ever hearing about the stomach sodium level. Eastwood said in the affidavit that Overton’s life sentence came because the jury had to choose between giving Overton life imprisonment or letting her go: “The jury in the Hannah Overton case in all likelihood would have returned a verdict on a lesser-included offense had the jurors been given that option.” But Anna Jimenez, a former prosecutor who helped convict Overton and who later served as interim district attorney, suggested this past January that Eastwood was at fault: “It is because I witnessed Sandra Eastwood’s behavior, during and after the trial that I fear she may have purposefully withheld evidence that may have been favorable to Hannah Overton’s defense.” Jimenez instigated an attorney general ethics investigation of Eastwood for matters not related to the Overton case. The attorney general exonerated her. A NEW EVIDENCE: overton reflects on her family and life in prison in 2008.
—Amy McCullough is a journalist living in Mississippi SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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Dispatches > News
Cover-up
Federal Fret
What’s Washington’s case against guitar maker Gibson? by megan basham in memphis armed federal officers from the Fish and Wildlife Service and homeland Security entered three Gibson Guitar plants in nashville and memphis on aug. 24, evacuated them, and confiscated several pallets of ebony logs from India as well as guitars and computer hard drives. The agents told employees they had evidence that the famed guitar maker was in violation of an Indian law that requires all exported wood to be finished by Indian workers. Gibson’s practice is to use U.S. workers for finishing. Gibson CEO henry Juszkiewicz says his employees were “treated like drug criminals” and that the government is identifying the wood as illegal “not because of U.S. law, but because of the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India.” he says the company has been buying wood from India for over 17 years and that the ebony in question was properly sourced and approved by Indian authorities. The incident marks the second raid for Gibson in two years. In november 2009 agents seized a shipment of ebony from madagascar they claim was in violation of the lacey act, a century-old wildlife protection law expanded in 2008. Gibson says it has sworn affidavits and documents from the madagascar government that prove the company legally exported the wood but haven’t been given an opportunity to present them. The Justice Department will not comment on the 2009 raid. It has yet to file criminal charges against the company nor has it returned the confiscated property. at an aug. 25 press conference, Juszkiewicz said, “over the last two years, we have hired 580 american workers yet the government is spending millions of dollars on this. They flew agents in from new orleans, albuquerque, and Washington, D.C.” he added, “We feel totally abused. We believe the arrogance of federal power is impacting me personally, our company personally, and the employees here in Tennessee, and it’s just plain wrong.”
What is Boko haram?
Boko Haram began in northern Nigeria in 2002 under the radical Islamic cleric
Mohammad Yusuf. The fast-growing terror group’s name colloquially translated means, “Western education is sin,” and its Aug. 26 car bombing of the UN compound in Nigeria’s capital, Lagos—the largest ever on a Western target in Nigeria, killing 23 and injuring over 80—highlighted its intent. In 2009 the group upped its jihadist strategy
against Nigeria’s Christian population, and experts now worry that it is linking arms with AQIM, the al-Qaeda affiliate in northern Africa, and Somalia’s al-Shabaab terrorists.
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TERRY: U.S. CUSTomS anD BoRDER PRoTECTIon/aP • GIBSon: JIm WEBER/ThE CommERCIal aPPEal/lanDov • nIGERIa: hEnRY ChUkWUEDo/aFP/GETTY ImaGES CREDIT
Two top Justice Department officials lost their jobs Aug. 30 over the controversial Operation Fast and Furious, a botched investigation into gun smuggling that culminated with federal agents losing track of 2,000 guns sold under the program at the U.S.-Mexico border. Some of the guns ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels— with two of the weapons discovered last year at the scene of an Arizona shootout that left U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry dead. Kenneth Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, received reassignment to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy. Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis K. Burke resigned. In a Sept. 1 letter to the acting U.S. attorney in Phoenix, lawmakers said the office’s role “in the genesis and implementation of this case is striking,” and sought extensive documents in what they say is an intensifying investigation. Federal prosecutors there urged a judge not to confer victim status on the Terry family, which allows family members to be notified of court proceedings in the case, confer with prosecutors, testify at sentencing, and receive restitution. “I think it’s pretty bold of the government to take a position on this,” George McCubbin, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents 17,000 Border Patrol agents, told reporters last month. “It’s the government trying to cover its backside and minimize the embarrassment over a failed gun investigation.”
WORLD SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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Dispatches > Human Race and state by making statements about his faith on his school web page and syllabus.
NOMINATED President Obama nominated labor specialist Alan Krueger, , to head his Council of Economic Advisers. Krueger, a Princeton University economist who previously served in the Treasury Department, helped develop the Cash for Clunkers program.
Gen. David Petraeus, , retired Aug. from the Army after a -year career underscored by his effective counterinsurgency strategies commanding U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. His military departure came just days before his installation as the th director of the , an appointment resulting from a national security leadership shakeup in June. In his farewell speech, Petraeus warned against budget cuts that could jeopardize the U.S. military’s ability “to maintain the full-spectrum capability that we have developed over this last decade .”
KIDNAPPED Armed men kidnapped Shahbaz Taseer, , the son of former Pakistani Gov. Salman Taseer, who was shot to death in January by a bodyguard after he publicly
opposed the country’s blasphemy statute. Since then, the Taseer family has faced continual threats from extremist groups. No one has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.
REINSTATED A Florida school district reinstated history teacher Jerry Buell after the board had suspended him for comments he made on his personal Facebook page criticizing New York’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage. Although school officials initially thought Buell’s Facebook post may have violated the district’s ethics policy, they now say they are investigating whether the -year veteran teacher violated the separation of church
SENTENCED Jessica Beagley, the Alaska mom who sparked worldwide outrage and a criminal trial after she appeared on Dr. Phil where film clips showed her punishing her son by squirting hot sauce into his mouth and putting him in a cold shower, received three years of probation after a jury convicted her of misdemeanor child abuse. Prosecutors had alleged Beagley, , used the punishments as a ploy to
DIED Dmitri Royster, a Southern Baptist from Texas who became archbishop of the South for the Orthodox Church in America, died Aug. in Dallas at age . In World War II Royster served with Gen. Douglas MacArthur interrogating Japanese POWs POW . In addition to Japanese, he learned Greek, Spanish, and later Russian. After becoming archbishop in his diocese, which covered states, grew from parishes to in years— mirroring nationwide interest in the Orthodox church.
PETRAEUS: SANG TAN/AP • TASEER: REUTERS/LANDOV • BUELL: HANDOUT • KRUEGER: CAROLYN KASTER/AP • BEAGLEY: MARC LESTER/MCT/LANDOV • ROYSTER: HANDOUT CREDIT
RETIRED
get on , but defense attorneys countered that she turned to the show for help with the adopted boy, , who suffered from Reactive Attachment Disorder.
WORLD SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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8/31/11 10:35 AM
Dispatches > Quotables “Do you serve grass on your international flights, like the masses of the are forced to eat during famines?” Comment in August by MATT MILLER on the Facebook page for Air Koryo, the North Korean airline.
“The authorities have thrown a lot of stimulus at the problem and to date, it’s basically done nothing.”
U.S. Secretary of State HILLARY CLINTON on Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, who was released by Scottish authorities in to let him die at home in Libya. The authorities at the time said the cancer-stricken al-Megrahi, who was convicted of murdering people in the bombing of Pan Am Flight , had only three months to live. He has lived for the past two years in Tripoli.
“It’s like Little House on the Prairie times. Except I’m not enjoying it at all.” Rhode Island resident DEBBIE MWEENEY on being among the hundreds of thousands living without power or electricity in the wake of Hurricane Irene.
“I think the same thing as many women regarding StraussKahn’s attitude to women.” MARTINE AUBRY,, party secretary of France’s Socialist Party, on the Sept. return to France of the scandal-plagued Socialist leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn after authorities in New York dropped charges against him of attempted rape. Many in the former director’s party are distancing themselves from him.
AL-MEGRAHI: ABDEL MAGID AL FERGANY/AP • AIR KORYO: MARTIN SASSE/LAIF/REDUX • RHODE ISLAND: STEW MILNE/AP • STRAUSS-KAHN: CREDIT DAVID KARP/AP
“He should be behind bars.”
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BEN POTTER of IG Markets in Melbourne, Australia, on the negative global market reaction to reports that the U.S. economy did not add any new jobs in August.
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AL-MEGRAHI: ABDEL MAGID AL FERGANY/AP • AIR KORYO: MARTIN SASSE/LAIF/REDUX • RHODE ISLAND: STEW MILNE/AP • STRAUSS-KAHN: CREDIT DAVID KARP/AP
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Dispatches > Quick Takes Knocking down old casinos is hardly news in Las Vegas. But the planned demise for the Harmon Hotel is unusual even by Vegas standards. Building owner halted construction on the non-gaming, -floor hotel in and on Aug. announced plans to implode the building before it opened. Back in , engineers on the project discovered major construction flaws that would make the building unstable in the event of a major earthquake. officials say building contractor Perini botched installation of support steel making the project untenable—a claim Perini plans to fight in court.
He may be a non-commissioned officer, but Marine Sgt. David Douglas really knows how to push some weight around. The Camp Pendleton Marine notched a world record, bench-pressing . pounds at the U.S. Powerlifting Association Open in the event for lifters weighing under pounds. “People were really patting me on the back,” Douglas told . “And [making] little jokes here and there about, ‘Can you pick up my car if I have a flat tire?’” No, but Douglas said he probably could lift a small elephant. The -foot, -pound man nicknamed “The Beast” said he could only get pounds up in high school and credits the Marines’ powerlifting team for his recordbreaking performance.
Feeling a bit squeezed for hard drive space? An project being constructed in California is sure to make you a bit jealous. Researchers and engineers are constructing a data storage system that, when completed, should allow for petabytes of storage. By comparison, that’s enough data storage capacity to store billion s or the storage equivalent to more than billion .-inch floppy disks from the s. said it’s constructing the system by piecing together , conventional hard drives for a customer that wants to use the system for complex computer simulations. “This petabyte system is on the lunatic fringe now, but in a few years it may be that all cloud computing systems are like it,” project leader Bruce Hillsberg told ’s Technology Review.
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Texans do love their cars, but this might be stretching it. Pastor David Ray on Aug. began holding church services in the parking lot of a suburban Dallas high school—a kind of drive-thru church he calls Sanctuary Under the Sky. Parishioners of Ray’s Presbyterian Church of the Master drive into a parking spot outside the high school, pick up a bulletin and tune into the worship service on their car radios while watching him through the windshield. Ray says he wanted to reach out to unchurched people. “I think [Jesus] would like it. His stuff was outdoors,” Ray told -. “A lot of trouble He had was indoors.”
DOUGLAS: HANDOUT • HARMON HOTEL: JAE C. HONG/AP • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE CREDIT
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ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • LEAR: TANYA MUNRO • HUGHES: PASCO COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE • SIPLIN: CHRIS O’MEARA/AP • SNAKES & TORTOISES: TSA CREDIT
For a Georgia jewelry store owner, there’s only one consolation to the news that your dog has just eaten , worth of diamonds: This too shall pass. Chuck Roberts of Albany, Ga., said his small dog Honey Bun is only supposed to greet customers at the door as they enter the jewelry shop he co-owns. But sometime in early August, Honey Bun managed to stumble upon a pack of small, loose diamonds valued at over ,. Honey Bun apparently gobbled up the diamonds as if they were kibbles. After eliminating most other possibilities, Roberts took Honey Bun to a clinic to be X-rayed on a hunch. Sure enough, Honey Bun had some precious cargo in her stomach. The next day, Roberts paid close attention to her droppings and successfully recovered diamonds.
DOUGLAS: HANDOUT • HARMON HOTEL: JAE C. HONG/AP • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE CREDIT
ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • LEAR: TANYA MUNRO • HUGHES: PASCO COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE • SIPLIN: CHRIS O’MEARA/AP • SNAKES & TORTOISES: TSA CREDIT
What do you do when Guinness World Records doesn’t have a category to fit your particular specialty? You petition them to create one for you. Electric bicycle enthusiast Allan Lear of Queensland, Australia, did just that and the organization said it would credit him with a world record if he can manage to electrically pedal his way more than miles in one week. If Lear’s plans to ride more than miles every day into the Australian outback beginning Aug. come to fruition, he will have set the record much closer to , miles. The -yearold’s highly modified bike will do much of the pedaling for him thanks to its electrical drive, provided his support car can properly charge the bicycle’s batteries.
Florida has a new dress code for schools this fall, but it’s one that almost all students until recent years would have thought obvious: Keep your pants up. State Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, championed a law in the Florida legislature banning the popular saggy pants on school campuses, and as classes began this semester he went to several schools to hand out belts. Students who do not comply face suspensions from school and extracurricular activities. Siplin, who is African-American, saw opposition to the law from the and the , but he told the Reuters news service that he found support in communities. “The parents, the grandmothers, the professional people, they say, ‘How can they walk down the street showing their behinds?’ It’s not civilized.”
A Port Richey, Fla., resident learned an elementary lesson in street life in August: When your drug dealer shortchanges you on a deal, sheriff’s deputies aren’t so interested in helping you get your change back. Donald M. Hughes told a sheriff’s deputy that he was robbed by a woman who had taken a bill from him but hadn’t made change. According to official reports, Hughes paid Tammy Lucas he owed her and purchased worth of Xanax pills. When Lucas failed to give him his change, he called authorities. Sheriff’s officials in turn arrested Hughes and charged him with filing a false police report.
Even many small and uncontroversial items don’t make it through security at American airports, but an alleged smuggler in Miami apparently thought he could trick the by stuffing seven exotic snakes and three tortoises into his pants. It didn’t work. Security officials spotted the animals, which were stuffed into small bags, as the man went through airport security checkpoints on Aug. before a scheduled trip to Brazil. Authorities did not identify the man. SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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Janie B. Cheaney
THE RED (STATE) SCARE
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Evangelicals in public office? The new-old leftist paranoia
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KRIEG BARRIE
- the postwar “Red Scare” reached its height in the McCarthy Senate hearings, prototype of all witch hunts and icon of ideology run amuck. To this day, “McCarthyism” raises the specter of harmless nonconformists forced into the spotlight at the risk of reputation and career. It’s a prime example of what Richard J. Hofstadter, in a famous essay, called “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” in which irrational fear trumps reasoned analysis. He applied it to the Goldwater campaign, but “behind this, I believe, there is a style of mind that is far from new, and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style, simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.” Fast-forward to last month, when a widely circulated and much-commented-on New Yorker article by Ryan Lizza explored the religious influences on presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. Lizza’s prose knotted with concern as he described the influence on the conservative Christian of the worldviews of Francis Schaeffer and Nancy Pearcey—both of whom, apparently, dared to believe that a Christian’s faith in Christ should affect every area of life and thought. That’s weird enough, but Lizza also finds a connection between Schaeffer and “dominionism”—the belief that Christians should rule the world. Or something like that. Supposedly Schaeffer advocated the violent overthrow of an ungodly government and had close ties with R.J. Rushdoony and Christian Reconstructionism, too. Should we be alarmed? Less than a week after Lizza’s article appeared, The New Republic ran “Rick Perry: The God-Fearing, No-Nothing, PistolPacking Embodiment of Liberals’ Worst Nightmare,” by Walter Shapiro. Second on Shapiro’s list of reasons to be very afraid
of Perry is “The God Card,” meaning the governor’s public embrace of “the living Christ” and “the salvation agenda.” That same day, ’s Terry Gross interviewed Rachel Tabachnick, an expert on the New Apostolic Movement, about the “dominionist” overtones and code words embedded in the Aug. prayer rally in Houston. So far, mainstream articles and commentary have been more insinuative than blatant. Bachmann + Schaeffer + Rushdoony = Reconstructionism? Perry + International House of Prayer + “The Call” = theocracy? The line between these dots may be more tangential than straight, but the implication is clear: Watch out for evangelical politicians with ties to anyone who ever said anything about faith and government. Reader comments are more blunt, and no description fits them better than Hofstadter’s “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy”: The Christians are coming! The revenge of the Red States! Seems a little paranoid. Maybe even McCarthy-ish? With months until Election Day, we have plenty of time to come to conclusions about candidates. But “Christian dominionism” (temptingly elastic in definition) is probably only beginning its run on the public stage. If either Perry or Bachmann is the Republican nominee, the Obama campaign will likely pour part of its reported billion-dollar war chest into painting them as wild-eyed theocrats. There’s not much we can do about public perception. Our main concern is Christ and His church, and doing our best to bring no reproach on either. Most likely we’ll hear and read outrageous accusations—what do we need to handle it? First, patience. Our country is in the middle of an identity crisis, with all the attendant angst. Whether it ends well is something we can’t control. Second, compassion. Those who put their trust in princes (Psalm :) are doomed to disappointment— and such were some of us. Third, prayer for those who say all kinds of evil against us on Christ’s account (Matthew :, ). And fourth, perseverance “to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope …” (Titus :). The Lizzas and Shapiros of this present age may not be reassured. But if we can ease the paranoia of a neighboring Smith or Jones, it’s a battle won. A Email: jcheaney@worldmag.com
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will have a parent in prison this Christmas.
YOU can be the arms of love to a hurting child right in your own community. Make your church an Angel TreeÂŽ partner this year and share the Gospel with a child in need.
krieg barrie
1-800-55-ANGEL | www.angeltree.org/world Angel TreeÂŽ is a registered trademark of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
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Reviews MOVIES & TV BOOKS Q&A MUSIC
ChuCk ZlotniCk
Family fight >> Warrior masquerades as a hard-hitting sports flick about the rough world of mixed martial arts cage matches, but under the muscle and bravado hides a taut, profound family drama. Longtime alcoholic Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte) has found sobriety with the help of a newfound Christian faith. The change comes too late for his relationship with his adult sons. Brendan (Joel Edgerton) and his wife Tess (Jennifer Morrison) have two daughters, three jobs, and an upside down mortgage. They have been hurt too many times to allow Paddy back into their lives. When Paddy’s other son Tommy (Tom Hardy) comes back into town after
MOVIE: Ostensibly about mixed martial arts, Warrior tells a profound story of forgiveness by Rebecca cusey
a stint in Iraq, both brothers enter a televised fight tournament with a payoff of $5 million. Paddy may have been the worst possible father, but he sure can coach a fighter. The two brothers are trapped by the fallout of Paddy’s spectacular failures, but they blunder toward forgiveness. Actually, they swing, punch, kick, and choke toward forgiveness. This testosterone-heavy movie infuses extremely violent cage fights with emotion. Bulging muscles serve as metaphors for full hearts and cut faces echo wounded souls. These men don’t say much with their words, but communicate everything through their actions.
Nolte delivers an amazing performance as a man torn by regret, a poignant combination of vulnerability, longing, and determination. Actions have consequences. No one knows this more than Paddy Conlon. With a PG-13 rating, the fighting is brutal but confined to the cage. There is some bad language and a few shots of Tess in her underwear, but no sexual content. The intense fighting takes the sappiness out of what turns out to be a very moving film. By the time of the inevitable showdown in the cage, the definition of victory has shifted from winning money to the restoration of family members who, deep down, still love each other. SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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Reviews > Movies & TV
What’s in the Bible? by Megan Basham
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BOX OFFICE TOP 10 . -,
CAUTIONS: Quantity of sexual (S), violent (V), and foul-language (L) content on a - scale, with high, from kids-in-mind.com
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The Help* PG-13............................ The Debt R ..................................... Apollo PG-13 ............................. Shark Night PG-13............... Rise of the Planet of the Apes* PG-13 ...................... Colombiana PG-13 ..................... Our Idiot Brother R .................. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark R ................................. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World* PG ......................... The Smurfs PG ............................
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*Reviewed by sounding Captain Pete and his parrot Reginal explain why a Protestant’s Bible has fewer books than a Catholic’s Bible. (Answer: Protestants follow the .. revised Judaic Septuagint whereas Catholics use an older Greek Septuagint. Yeah, somehow Vischer manages to convey that in language a third grader can understand.) Given how much serious teaching Vischer packs into each -minute episode, it’s unlikely kids will demand constant replays the way many do with VeggieTales. The silly songs here aren’t titled “Where Is My Hairbrush” or “Pizza Angel,” but rather “The Cycle of Apostasy.” But while the wry, often laugh-out-loud funny videos aren’t a substitute for serious biblical education, they are a good jumping off point that will likely teach mom and dad almost as much as they teach the kids. As one blogging mom described them, “they’re like remedial Bible .” Only with pirates.
JELLYFISH LABS
B I, the animation studio he started in his basement, went bankrupt, Phil Vischer had an epiphany (see p. ). He looked back and realized that while his immensely entertaining VeggieTales characters delighted kids and sold by the millions, they only taught children how to behave Christianly—they didn’t teach them Christianity. “For some kids being good comes really, really easy, and for some kids it comes really hard,” Vischer told me. “And until you really explain to them the entirety of the faith—that we all mess up and that it’s the Holy Spirit at work that helps us to be forgiving, that helps us to be kind—until you unpack the whole thing, you haven’t helped them much at all.” So for his next venture Vischer set out to unpack the whole thing and explain “God’s great rescue plan and how stories like those of Moses, David, and Jesus fit together to tell one big, redemptive story.” He created What’s in the Bible?, an ecclesiastical smorgasbord of instruction ranging from standard Sunday school fare like Noah and the ark to considerably less well-trodden territory like the .. Edict of Milan, taught by, of all things, puppets. If it sounds like a strange concept, it is. But it’s also sort of wonderful in its strangeness. Every year a new Barna Group study shows biblical illiteracy growing to epidemic proportions. The responses of regular churchgoers reveal that many understand little of what they profess to believe, and even the most sincere believers have trouble defending their faith against challenges. Into this gap steps What’s in the Bible?, a light, witty primer that sets the trees of Christianity into a contextual forest and provides answers to some of the toughest questions believers can expect their culture to ask.
Having cuddly, cartoonish characters like cowboy Chuck Waggin and daffy Dr. Schniffenhousen cover religious doctrine is also not as novel as it seems. For inspiration, Vischer drew on a four-part series Disney produced in about how man would reach the moon. “They brought in German rocket scientists, they had Donald Duck demonstrating weightlessness, and they did re-enactments and had models. They were highly entertaining and hugely impactful,” says Vischer. He says the ratings were so high that one executive at said Congress probably wouldn’t have approved its budget if Disney hadn’t gotten Americans so excited about space travel. Thanks to those specials, Vischer says, “When I first started thinking about [What’s in the Bible?], one of the things I wrote down was ‘What if Walt Disney produced Carl Sagan’s Cosmos for the purpose of teaching historical Christianity?’ What would that look like?” What it looks like is a mock news program where a host of eccentric fuzzy reporters walk families book by book from Genesis to Revelation, tackling some thorny theological issues along the way. For example, in a segment called “A Pirate’s Guide to Church History,” the Scottish-
WORLD SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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HIGHER GROUND: SONY PICTURES CLASSICS •DRIVE: FILMDISTRICT
DVD
MOVIE
Higher Ground by Tiffany Owens
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In her dIrectIonal debut, Vera Farmiga explores a woman’s search for true faith. Farmiga stars as Corinne Miller, who answers Jesus’ “knock at her heart” as a girl and then spends her life waiting for Him to make Himself at home. She marries, births three children, and supports her local church while wrestling with a painful disconnect between real life and religious rhetoric. Farmiga transports the viewer into the hilarious lives of zealous Christians trying to “live right” while juxtaposing them with authentic human experiences like suffering, temptation, and broken families. Some of these real life scenes are sexual, another reflects drug possession (not usage), and others contain profanity—hence the R rating. Eventually, Corinne becomes discontent with the lack of depth to the spirituality offered by her church—especially when it means glossing over painful loss and marital hardships with comfortable church clichés. Viewers should be prepared for a film that poignantly reflects a story of interior conflict. This film does not try to provide simple answers to Corinne’s suffering or angst. Instead, it is designed to reflect Corinne’s spiritual discontent and her search for something higher, deeper. Farmiga explores this search without compromising artistic depth: The dialogue and character development are both strong and believable. Dagmara Dominczyk (The Count of Monte Cristo) gives an endearing performance as Corinne’s best friend. Bill Irwin (Lady in the Water) masters pastoral behavior with ease while Nina Arianda (Midnight in Paris) adds real-life texture and humor as the wayward sister and confused “outsider” in Corinne’s church. Farmiga portrays Corinne’s church as theologically insufficient, but she handles questions of faith and spirituality with humor and artistry without undermining either of them. Christian viewers should entertain it with caution but also with appreciation for Farmiga’s ability to show a real person trying to find a true God that is compatible with real life.
MOVIE
Drive
jellyfish labs
HigHer ground: sony PicTuRes classics •drive: filMDisTRicT
by Rebecca Cusey
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the audIence that sits down to see Drive may expect to see a heist movie, but they will quickly become absorbed in a film that has more in common with a classic Western than a high-octane chase film. Ryan Gosling stars as a character known only as the Driver, a Hollywood stunt man by day and criminal get-away driver by night. He lives alone in a run-down apartment, one of those strong men of few words types that the ladies love. The lady in question is his neighbor Irene (Carey
Mulligan), mother to a little boy. Just as the two develop a chaste but deep bond, her jailbird husband comes home. He is a man who just wants a second chance to do right by his wife and child, but his past catches up with him. It leads to a robbery that goes horribly wrong, leaving the Driver with a list of evil people who
See all our movie reviews at worldmag.com/movies
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must die if innocent Irene and her son are to live in peace. Rated R, the film is shockingly violent, with the Driver’s righteous killings shown in full gore. There is also a lot of profane language and some nudity. Through the haze of blood, however, Gosling effectively pulls of a classic character: a powerful but quiet man with the will to take on the worst criminals on their own turf on behalf of a woman and child from whom he expects nothing. Like a Clint Eastwood or John Wayne character, the brooding Driver finds some atonement for his violence in the continued safety of those he protects. His driving gloves replace the white hat and fast cars take the place of fast horses, but underneath, his heart is the same. It makes for an excellent movie for those who can stand the violence. sePTeMbeR 24, 2011
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Reviews > Books
Holocaust history
(Basic, ) occurred. MacDonogh shows how Hitler played off one group against another: Czechs vs. Austrians (p. ), assimilated Jews vs. Zionists (p. ), evangelicals vs. Authors trace attitudes and actions that culminated Catholics (p. ). The horror film that was in Jewish horror often includes only one frame, with appeasing Prime Minister R H, the Neville Chamberlain trading lives for a piece of paper and claiming that he Jewish New Year’s Day, coming had achieved “peace in our time,” on Sept. , I’ve been wondering but the failure was general. why Germany, the liberal Jewish Evangelicals who ponder the hoshope in the th century, became the tility of many Jews should read about center of th-century horror and what happened when Hitler at first holocaust. Jonathan Steinberg’s wanted to send the objects of his Bismarck: A Life (Oxford, ) quotes hatred to other countries rather than German Jews as early as who saw to gas chambers. Country after elite anti-Semitism: As Ludwig country, including the United States, Bamberger observed, “The ordinary denied them entry. Christians rarely people have nothing to do with it. It is spoke up. MacDonogh shows that the hatred and envy of the educated, procountries, not wanting poor Central fessors, jurists, pastors and lieutenants.” European Jews, knew that “once One problem was that German they were in, it would prove diffiChristianity had often become cultural cult to send them back.” MI, nicety rather than belief. Chancellor Otto Britain’s counter-intelligence von Bismarck at various times called agency, saw a Nazi plot to flood himself a Christian, but his real religion Britain with Jews and create a was “blood and iron.” Britain in the th “Jewish problem” in the United century had lots of anti-Semitism but Kingdom. better leaders, including Jewish-Christian The irony is that over the millenBenjamin Disraeli. Two biographies—Adam Nazi propaganda poster nia countries that admitted Jews Kirsch’s Benjamin Disraeli (Schocken, ) and Christopher prospered, and those such as Spain that exiled them lost out. Hibbert’s Disraeli: The Victorian Dandy Who Became Prime German Jews who got out before the gates closed, and made it Minister (Palgrave, )—tell the prime minister’s scintilto America, played key roles in creating the atomic bomb: It’s lating story. one of God’s mercies that Germany, stripped of many leading Britain could have used a th-century Disraeli when the scientists, was unable to come up with the bomb first. action described in Giles MacDonogh’s : Hitler’s Gamble
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KRISTOL CLEAR
WORLD SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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GOOD REMINDER Subscriber David Misner wrote, “I am so disappointed not to find any mention of Patrick O’Brian in your Book Issue.” (I listed many wholesome books.) Misner continued, “I took your recommendation over years ago ... you said O’Brian’s Aubrey/ Maturin series was the best in the historical novel genre. I have read them (all ) a couple of times and agree with you—best I’ve ever read. Have you changed your opinion?” Answer: Nope. Just forgot. They’re great.
WORLD HISTORY ARCHIVE/NEWSCOM
One of the th century’s most important intellectuals, Irving Kristol (-), moved away from conventional Jewish liberalism: Although a secularist, he had some appreciation of Christianity and called it (echoing Franz Rosenzweig) “a sister religion to Judaism” and a “Judaism for the Gentiles.” Kristol’s The Neoconservative Persuasion: Selected Essays, (Basic, ) has thoughtful political analysis and also a section on “Judaism and Christianity.” Kristol, who explicitly discounted the importance of theological truth, was neither receptive to nor offended by attempts to evangelize him and others, or by statements that Christ is the only way to heaven. In his humorously scoffing way he saw no need for “Jewish organizations, having fought (quite successfully) against Jewish exclusion from country clubs ... to take on the specter of discrimination in that Great Country Club in the Sky.” Kristol’s widow, the fine historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, also has looked for the best rather than the worst: I’ve just read an advance copy of her excellent work to be published in November, The People of the Book: Philosemitism in England from Cromwell to Churchill (Encounter).
Email: molasky@worldmag.com
9/4/11 8:55 PM
NOTABLE BOOKS
Four novels that feature the famous > reviewed by
A Good Hard Look Ann Napolitano It takes creative guts to set a novel in Milledgeville, Ga., and make Flannery O’Connor a central character. Ann Napolitano takes the risk with mixed results as she portrays ambitions, resentments, and lust beneath a placid surface. They combust into violence just as you might expect from an O’Connor story, the problem is the O’Connor character: Is she faithful to her namesake? I doubt it. This O’Connor is a lonely, bitter figure with a shallow, petulant faith. If you put aside the knowledge that the character with the peacocks is supposed to be a literary lion, you’ll find a well-told, somewhat melodramatic story. One more quibble: How do you write a story set in Georgia in the s and not deal at all with race?
The Last Dickens Matthew Pearl Charles Dickens dies before he can finish his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.. His Boston publisher, trying to stay one step ahead of the publishing competition, is desperate to find out how the story was supposed to end. Thus begins a search that takes the American publisher, Osgood, and his pretty bookkeeper, Rebecca Sand, to England to search for clues. The story flashes back to Dickens’ last American tour, then jumps to India, where Dickens’ son is a policeman charged with protecting the British opium trade. The novel is slow in parts and confusing in others, but the patient reader will be rewarded with a wellrendered and historically accurate picture of th century publishing, fame, and the opium trade.
The Little Women Letters Gabrielle Donnelly This lively novel imagines the descendants of the March sisters Women—Emma, Lulu, and Sophie Atwater—figuring from Little Women out life in modern London. The Atwaters resemble the Marches: Emma is sensible like Meg and Sophie is artistic like Amy. Lulu—a somewhat odd bird—finds in her parents’ attic letters written by great, great, great grandmother Jo. They describe funny scenes, ponder matters of the heart, and express grief over Beth’s death. In the letters Lulu finds a kindred spirit and guidance as she struggles to find herself. The novel is clean and fun, especially if you loved Little Women. A mild feminist thread weaves through the book, but it is accompanied by another thread that extols family and lifelong marriage.
WORLD HISTORY ARCHIVE/NEWSCOM
Doc Mary Doria Russell Mary Doria Russell‘s compelling, sympathetic portrait of the brilliant, consumptive dentist from Georgia brings to life Dodge City, Kan., in all its lawless energy. John Henry (Doc) Holliday is a tragic hero in her telling, a man fallen from the life he was born to and trained for. Hints of that past life—before Sherman marched through Georgia, before his beloved mother died, before he contracted tuberculosis—are evident as he quotes Homer, enjoys fine food and clothes, and defends his honor. He turns to gambling to support himself and the prostitute, a minor aristocrat, with whom he lives. Increasingly he turns to brandy to get relief from his racking cough and pain. Note: If this were a movie it would be R-rated for language, violence, and sexual themes. Email: solasky@worldmag.com; see all our reviews at mag.com/books
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SPOTLIGHT Once again it’s Banned Book Week. Since the American Library Association and booksellers have chosen the last week in September to draw attention to books challenged or removed from school and public library shelves. Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook will play a role this year, and YouTube users will be posting videos as they read from their favorite challenged books. The American Library Association received reports of book challenges in . The most challenged books: And Tango Makes Three; The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian; Brave New World; Crank; The Hunger Games (series); Lush; What My Mother Doesn’t Know; Nickel and Dimed; Revolutionary Voices; Twilight (series). All these books had to make it onto the library shelves and school reading lists before they could be challenged and removed. In the s libraries often didn’t carry Nancy Drew because librarians didn’t think the series was literature. Now, according to American Libraries magazine libraries have decided to add to their collections a “decidedly adult bedtime-story parody” with an obscenity in the title—but woe to the person who might object because it’s not age-appropriate.
SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
WORLD
8/31/11 8:38 PM
Reviews > Q&A
Central casting
Hollywood doesn’t have a plethora of non-stereotypical roles for even highly trained Hispanic actors like TONY PLANA and ADA MARIS BY MARVIN OLASKY
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WORLD SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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“LOT OF DRAMA IN OUR HOUSE”: Plana with America Ferrera in Ugly Betty (top); Maris in Star Trek: Enterprise.
how to speak that way because otherwise I was unemployable. Tony, was your role as the widowed father on the television series Ugly Betty better? PLANA: Yes, that Latino family projected a loving picture of who we are, culturally, and why family is so central to Latin culture. I do think that Latinos are now able to play more regular characters, but many studio executives still don’t believe that Hispanic
s exist, even though Latinos are very successful, the highest percentage of small business owners. Ada, have you seen other types of stereotyping in that occasional role you have on One Life to Live? MARIS: I play the conservative Christian mother of a college freshman. A lot of scenes were written very specifically for another character to lecture me on why my viewpoint is misguided and mistaken. I had one scene to declare my viewpoint, and then this one character who’s been on the show for years was to lecture me. But, the funny thing was, when it came time for my speech, I was able to deliver it in a very human manner, and it came across as reasonable, useful, and heartfelt. When it came time for her part, she yelled “Cut.” She was very upset that it wasn’t going very well, that she didn’t have material to work with. How about playing Captain Erika Hernandez on Star Trek: Enterprise? MARIS: I had my own starship [laughter]. That was a tough role for me, because I’m used to playing girlfriends and mothers, and here I am on the deck of a starship and commanding all these people, saying things like “Take us to warp.” I’m used to saying “Go to your room” if people talk back to me. Tony, since you were born in Cuba, did you enjoy playing Cuban dictator Batista in the movie Fidel? PLANA: I’ve been attracted to movies about upheavals in other countries. When I read a script like that, it fascinates me. MARIS: Not every actor can fill those roles. He’s often cast as some LatinAmerican politician up on a balcony. PLANA: I do it at breakfast every morning. MARIS: And we wonder why our kids are like that [laughter]. Lot of drama in our house.
MARIS AND PLANA: JONATHON ZIEGLER/PATRICKMCMULLAN.COM/SIPA PRESS/SIPA • UGLY BETTY: KAREN NEAL/ABC VIA GETTY IMAGES • STAR TREK: PARAMOUNT PICTURES
B H M in February gets attention, but Hispanic Heritage Month gets little, perhaps because it’s oddly not a month but—since —a -day period from Sept. to Oct. that commemorates the time in when many Latin American countries declared their independence from Spain. I asked two fine husband-and-wife actors, Tony Plana and Ada Maris, about movie depictions of Latinos—and we also talked about revolutions and Three Amigos Here are excerpts. Tony, you’ve fought against ethnic stereotyping both in your own acting and through your efforts as co-founder and executive artistic director of the East L.A. Classic Theatre. PLANA: It’s interesting: You study at the Royal Academy In London, doing Shakespeare, trying to play professionally, and you’re “Gang Member No. .” But that classical training gave me an edge. I could work the environment, and people would say, “Hire that guy.” MARIS: In Nurses, on , I played an immigrant nurse, and constantly my speeches began with, “Ēn my village ...” so I learned to do it, and enjoy it, ‘cause I could make anything funny with that accent. Lemonade from lemons? PLANA: Immigrants with that accent sound funny, but we used to laugh because all these people from great colleges, educated to at least a middle class sensibility, were now playing street: You had all these guys going around “Eh, yo, wha’s happenen?” [laughter]. MARIS: I had spent my whole lifetime learning what I considered to be normal, American speech, watching Mary Tyler Moore. Then I get into the business and need to speak with an uneducated, immigrant accent. I had to teach myself
Email: molasky@worldmag.com
9/4/11 8:58 PM
MARIS AND PLANA: JONATHON ZIEGLER/PATRICKMCMULLAN.COM/SIPA PRESS/SIPA • UGLY BETTY: KAREN NEAL/ABC VIA GETTY IMAGES • STAR TREK: PARAMOUNT PICTURES
Tony, after Castro came to power your dad, a banker, sent you and your mother out of Cuba in December —and he stayed for another three months ... PLANA: This is the irony of the Cuban revolution: Che Guevara, a political philosopher who knew nothing about economics, took over the banking system. He executed a lot of people. My father wanted to make sure we were out of harm’s way before he resigned. We were blessed: He was allowed to leave the country. When you see college students wearing Che Guevara shirts, does that fry you? MARIS: Drives us crazy. PLANA: It’s so ignorant. I like the one that looks like Che Guevara, but when you come closer it says “Cher.” OK, I have to ask you how you came to be in one of the funniest Westerns ever, Three Amigos? Amigos PLANA: I had done a film with Oliver Stone in Mexico called Salvador, and Stone asked me to be Salvador in his film about Vietnam, Platoon. He still hadn’t paid me for my last week of work with him, and this was going to be weeks in the Philippines, at scale pay. All of a sudden I got this offer for a lot more money with better lodging. I was developing a reputation as a dramatic actor, and this was my opportunity to do comedy. Good decision? PLANA: That year, Platoon got the Oscar for Best Picture and million at the theater. Three Amigos didn’t go so well in the theaters, yet it’s become a cult film. Marty Short said he had to hide that movie in his house because his children watch it night and day. MARIS: We meet more writers who tell us about it being their guilty pleasure. PLANA: I met Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. When Affleck realized I was Jefe in Three Amigos he said, “Matt, come here.” Whenever we’re apart for a long time and we meet again as friends, we do the whole “Plethora of Piñata” scene to each other. Great scene: I’ve watched the movie and seen the scene on YouTube. People often ask you to say lines from it? PLANA: I use this line on my wife all the time: “Could it be that you are mad at something else, and are taking it out on me?” A SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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WORLD
9/4/11 8:58 PM
Reviews > Music
Artists show their range with new albums BY ARSENIO ORTEZA
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I of pop music into mutually exclusive genres has you asking whether the “universal language” has entered its Tower of Babel-onian phase, three recent albums may help you. The answer, as long as one is fluent in bluegrass, is no. For Ricky Skaggs—who after hitting an artistic peak last year with Mosaic has another Christmas album in the pipeline and has never shown an
WORLD SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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Gilmore Skaggs
at getting booted from bluegrassGrammy consideration every time he records with a piano. What makes Skaggs’ album “conversant” with Heirloom Music by the Wronglers and Jimmie Dale Gilmore is the presence on both albums of “Uncle Pen,” a Bill Monroe song that was a hit for Skaggs in . Gilmore and the Wronglers perform it more with an ear toward capturing the spirit of rural Kentucky from the end of the Civil War through the Great Depression—the period during which the song’s subject, Monroe’s fiddler uncle James Pendleton Vandiver, lived. Faithfully reproducing the sepiatinted sounds of a bygone era was apparently the intent of Gilmore (an Austin-based roots musician with
ending with a rendition of Harry McClintock’s vision of a hobo’s paradise, “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” they end on a note of wistful hope. On Rare Bird Alert (Rounder), Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) and the Steep Canyon Rangers cover neither “Uncle Pen” nor any other venerable standard unless Martin’s novelty hit “King Tut” counts. But each of the originals, of which Martin wrote and the other three of which he co-wrote, feature the expert and enthusiastic deployment of dueling banjos, pickin’ and grinnin’, and other bluegrass trademarks. About the grinnin’—would it be a Steve Martin album without grinnin’?— the live “Atheists Don’t Have No Songs” is not only hilarious but also a backhanded compliment to the faith Martin almost seems he wishes he had. A
SKAGGS: RICK DIAMOND/GETTY IMAGES • GILMORE:KEITH CARTER
aversion to the repackaging of his hits—the urge to mark time with yet another best-of must have been strong. So it’s to his credit that with Country Hits Bluegrass Style (Skaggs Family) he has only partially given in. As someone with almost as many bluegrass Grammys to his name as the country kind, Skaggs probably could’ve stripped down “Highway Blues,” “Country Boy,” “Honey (Open That Door),” and “Cryin’ My Heart Out Over You” in his sleep. Instead, he’s played them the way he might’ve done for friends at Kentucky shindigs and not for major-label honchos with dollar signs where their ears should be. But it’s not the fiddles, banjos, dobros, and mandolins that come to the fore so much as the vocal harmonies. From the way they simultaneously
deepen and elevate the romantically bittersweet “You’ve Got a Lover,” you’d never guess that Skaggs has been happily married for years. And from the way the absence of vocal harmonies and bluegrass instruments allows “Somebody’s Prayin’” to become the album’s most heartfelt performance, it seems Skaggs is over his irritation
Email: aorteza@worldmag.com
9/3/11 10:06 AM
PR NEWSWIRE/WALT DISNEY RECORDS
Bluegrass bridge
mystical tendencies and an impressive résumé both as a solo artist and as a member of the Flatlanders). He’s joined by Warren Hellman, a high-profile venture capitalist who also happens to be a banjo-playing Wrongler and a benefactor of San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, when they embarked upon the Heirloom Music project. They’ve succeeded. Covering songs by the Carter Family, Charlie Poole, and unknown authors identified these days only by “trad., they make the past seem like the present if not necessarily the future. Wistful remorse is the predominant emotion, but by
NOTABLE CDs
Five noteworthy new albums > reviewed by
Burlap to Cashmere
Burlap to Cashmere It may have been years since John Philippidis and Steven Delopoulos released their only other Burlap to Cashmere album, but the balance of pop-lite soundscapes and soul-deep lyrics is a reminder—as if the steady pace of these songs weren’t enough—that patience is a virtue and that virtue is its own reward. And inevitable though the Cat Stevens and Simon & Garfunkel comparisons are, it should be noted that by blending the two, Philippidis and Delopoulos transcend them. And their subtly biblical lyrics keep sentimentalism at bay.
Raising Up the Dead Caedmon’s Call Those put off by Derek Webb’s solo obsessions with Fred Phelps and homosexuality needn’t worry about his return to Caedmon’s Call or his role as this album’s producer. From “Sometimes a Beggar,” which reminds capitalists tempted to follow in Judas’ footsteps that “ coins can bury you,” to “Free,” which celebrates the bearing of one another’s burdens with just enough confusion to remind us that we see through a glass darkly, this is music that cuts tune-deep the better to pour in the salt of the earth.
The Best of the Gospel Sessions Al Green
Forth Proto-Kaw
PR NEWSWIRE/WALT DISNEY RECORDS
SKAGGS: RICK DIAMOND/GETTY IMAGES • GILMORE:KEITH CARTER
Only three of this compilation’s songs were also included on Al Green’s first gospel-years compilation, which came out in and relied overmuch on his first two gospel albums. This album culls from seven of those eight, inexplicably nixing ’s “Where Love Rules” but otherwise doing the soul-singer-turned-reverend’s Word Records output justice. To a not-insignificant part of pop-music fans, he was bigger than Dylan, and he sang mainly gospel for nine years longer. He was a lot funkier too.
Having recovered from his September stroke, the ex-Kansas leader Kerry Livgren picks up where he left off, disseminating orthodox Christian sentiments to what might be called oldschool progressive rock (if all progressive rock weren’t old school by definition). The beat is a more prominent than in vintage Yes, , and Barclay James Harvest, but not so much that despisers of “new school” Genesis will feel excluded. Musically, it’s a balancing act without a safety net. Theologically, it’s a Fellowship of Christian Athletes’ slam dunk. See all our reviews at mag.com/music
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SPOTLIGHT As part of Disney’s lead-up to the new Muppets film, Walt Disney Records has commissioned a dozen alternative acts to have a go at some of the Muppets’ best-known songs. And although the title of the results—Muppets: The Green Album—smacks of environmental consciousness, there’s nothing any more obnoxiously “green” than Andrew Bird’s cover of Kermit the Frog’s “Bein’ Green,” which was always more about being judged and feeling ostracized because of the color of one’s skin instead of the color of one’s character anyway. As performed by the likes of OK Go (“The Muppet Theme Song”), Alkaline Trio (“Movin’ Right Along”), and the Fray (“Mah Nà Mah Nà”), these anthems to infectious innocence feel neither excessively cute nor cloyingly childish. In other words, ironically condescending hipsterism isn’t anywhere within earshot. These acts truly dig this music, and therein lies hope for all but the most intransigently unchildlike of us all.
SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
WORLD
9/3/11 10:07 AM
Mindy Belz
The Long hauL
Don’t dismiss what old-timers can teach their younger colleagues
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WORLD SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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LESha PaTTERSon foR woRLd
erhaps you’ve worked at your job for 10 years, or 20 or 30. Perhaps you’re someone longing to say that you have a job, given today’s employment picture. A job may fill us with gratitude and satisfaction, while its day to day saps us with the tall challenges and small tedium. After all, it’s work. Meet Lee Anderson, associate publisher and editor of the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Anderson is 85 years old and has been working at the paper since he was 16. On a recent visit to the paper’s newsroom with a reporter-friend who works there, I spied Anderson at his desk, where colleagues say he can be found just about every day of the week. It was nearly noon and the newsroom had mostly emptied. Sportswriters in their ball caps were at their desks, here a lifestyle reporter, there an editor or two, but most of the paper’s staff was out on assignment or to lunch. Not Anderson. He had a wrapped sandwich at his pressed-shirt elbow, and was eyeing the day’s paper spread on his desk. His door was open to the newsroom, and ever the old-school Southern gentleman, he seemed happy to be interrupted to chat. In 1942 Anderson was doing odd jobs and errands for the Chattanooga News-Free Press, he told us, when the paper’s crime reporter was called away to war. Would he step in to fill the position? Anderson was in high school, but headed to the newsroom every afternoon, often working on stories late into the night. He continued as a reporter through World War II, and in 1948 when the paper’s editor died suddenly, News-Free Press owners asked him to step into that position. He was 22. I imagine those war years were heady times and Anderson got a heady career start out of them. But 63 years later, what’s the attraction? He could be enjoying a round of golf or lunch with cronies instead of fussing over the next editorial page. Anderson waves away questions about tedium and the passage of time. “We were so busy in the ’50s,” he says at one point, describing the prolonged battles for readership and advertising with the paper’s then-rival, the Chattanooga Times.
The Times, owned by Adolph Ochs before Ochs moved to New York City and bought another paper by that name, at several points had two editions to compete with the more popular News-Free Press, which came out evenings. In the 1950s the papers combined offices and presses but remained separate publications— with the decidedly liberal bent of the Times going head to head with the News-Free Press’ conservative stance. They would be rivals until 1999, when Arkansas Democrat-Gazette owner Walter Hussman bought both and merged them. Anderson relishes remembering those days something like the Preacher who found enjoyment in all his toil under the sun, not much remembering the days of his life “because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart” (Ecclesiastes 5:20). Pleasure at both challenges and tedium is what the rest of us can learn from steady workers like him. And in the midst of it, the newsman found time to marry into the paper’s owning family, to be a regular churchgoer and attend a weekly men’s Bible study, and to build bridges between the city’s white conservatives and its budding civil rights movement leaders. Today the Times Free Press is the only U.S. newspaper that continues to run two editorial pages, a Times column (aptly on the left) and Free Press editorials on the right. Every day with an assistant Anderson plans out three or four editorials. On Sept. 1, those opinion pieces included one celebrating the first cars from a new vw plant in the city, another on the declining Tennessee lottery (“Funding higher education with lottery proceeds is a bad idea,” he wrote), and a third on FeMa’s freeze on disaster relief funds (“What Washington gives, it can take away”). What does an old man know? “For we are but of yesterday, and know not hing,” Bildad the Shuhite told Job. Bildad was wrong—or he never met Lee Anderson. A Email: mbelz@worldmag.com
9/5/11 5:02 PM
reaSonable, reliable, and raDiCal bookS “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” —Romans 12:2
revolutions in Worldview
Understanding the Flow of Western Thought EditEd by W. aNdREW HoffECkER Traces the historical development of the Western mind through ten eras— exploring the fundamental ideas that revolutionized the way in which people thought and acted from the Biblical writers through to today.
The Genesis Flood: 50th anniversary edition
Tearing Down Strongholds And Defending the Truth
The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications JoHN C. WHitComb aNd HENRy m. moRRiS
R. C. SpRoul JR.
Biblical and Scientific Responses
R. C. Sproul Jr. equips Christians with ammunition to counter the non-Christian philosophies that have made the greatest gains in our era and the primary criticisms leveled against the biblical worldview.
EditEd by NoRmaN C. NEviN
“Learned and lucid . . . a major achievement.” —J. I. paCkeR
Presents a thorough system unifying and correlating scientific data in the early earth’s history. Whitcomb and Morris propose a biblically based system of creationism and catastrophism. A modern classic, this title has become required reading for creationists.
ISBN 978-0-87552-573-0 448 pages | paper | $34.00
“One of the most important books of the past century.” —John F. maCaRthuR JR.
“My goal is not only to tear down the strongholds of the devil . . . but to show that the foundation upon which our faith stands is firm.” —R. C. SpRoul JR.
ISBN 978-1-59638-395-1 560 pages | paper | $16.99
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HIRING ON HOLD
Facing an uncertain future and a mountain of regulations, small businesses lack the confidence to grow BY EDWARD LEE PITTS IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
L
F
the healthcare battle has been lost for this Congress. And tax reform is such a highly partisan issue on a divided Capitol Hill that progress there seems unlikely. So, awash in federal red tape, job creators are placing their hopes (and their hiring prospects) on regulatory reform.
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Don Barefoot, president of a Christian business organization named the C Group, calls the current regulatory climate “ankle weights on the nation.” “Few will purposely navigate the increasingly complex U.S. regulatory maze with the uncertainty, delays, cost, and potential litigation it brings,” Barefoot said. “If business owners don’t have confidence in what is going on in Washington, why should they put hard earned capital at risk? We need to drain the regulatory swamp.” That swamp has gotten deeper over the last three years. Currently there are more than , proposed federal rules in the approval pipeline. The amount of pending regulations impacting small business has increased more than percent since . It already costs more than , per employee annually for the nation’s businesses to comply with all federal regulations. Navigating the uncertain regulatory maze forces owners to devote more time to playing defense against the federal government with less hours available for expanding, said John Berlau, the director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs. Last year, according to the Congressional Research Service, the Obama administration issued major rules, which are defined as regulations carrying annual costs of million or more. That’s the most major rules issued in one year since the Government Accountability Office started keeping records. There are such economically significant rules pending this year. The biggest rule maker dragging down job creators is the Environmental Protection Agency. The is currently considering hundreds of rules including ones to regulate construction and farm dust. By the ’s own estimates, permits for new greenhouse gas regulations would cost , and hours per facility seeking compliance. Increased regulations
BERT HEYDEL/iSTOCK
D . His company, Express Employment Professionals in Greensboro, N.C., employs people who work to put employers and job seekers together. At any one time, his company has - people placed with various clients, mostly small and medium-sized companies around North Carolina. “There’s not a day goes by,” he says, “that I don’t place someone in a job.” Business is improving this year, but Diana is seeing a movement toward what he calls “more flexible staffing” among employers. More than half of the hires he helps facilitate now are not permanent positions but jobs on projects lasting less than a year. Diana points directly at federal government policies as the cause for this trend toward flexible hiring. “There’s so much uncertainty. [Small businesses] can’t easily forecast what their costs will be in a year,” he said. “When you reduce their confidence, they get cautious.” This lack of confidence is pervasive and nationwide, and it helps explain why the unemployment rate remains stubbornly above percent. In January, percent of business owners in a Gallup poll said that their revenues would increase this year. But that confidence level dropped to percent in a July poll. And most small business owners and the organizations that support them are not expecting any economic miracles in the aftermath of President Obama’s post Labor Day jobs speech. The reason? Washington’s recent policies, according to Cynthia Magnuson of the National Federation of Independent Business, have worsened the three top concerns among employers: healthcare costs, corporate tax complexity, and increased government regulations.
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BERT HEYDEL/iSTOCK
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’ rhetoric .% on his August bus tour .% of the Midwest did include .% pledges of regulatory reform. “Now they are .% having to talk about % things they would have .% never discussed a year .% ago,” said Tim Phillips, .% president of Americans .% for Prosperity. “I hope he is serious and not just .% trying to help himself .% politically.” But bold words have only led to nibbling around the edges when it comes to actual deregulation. In August, Obama’s regulatory czar Cass Sunstein announced plans both to eliminate one rule that could save million annually and to reduce by million
REGULATION NATION: the manpower hours required for compliance. Obama in Illinois on Aug. ; Boeing assembly But that represents less than one plant in North Charleston, percent of the . billion total S.C.; Sunstein, director of paperwork hours endured by the the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. nation annually. Furthermore, in the same week of Sunstein’s chopping of one rule, federal regulators elsewhere were rolling out new rules: The National Labor Relations Board issued one making it easier for private-sector employees to unionize while other federal officials introduced at least five new regulations for Obamacare. It is predicted that the new healthcare law will impose billion in private sector costs and . billion in costs to states annually.
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OBAMA: CHARLIE NEIBERGALL/AP • BOEING: BRUCE SMITH/AP • SUNSTEIN: AP • MAP: © DOW JONES & COMPANY, INC.
could cost the United States up to . million lost jobs and billion in lost gross domestic product, according to the American Council for Capital Formation. Fears over dust regulation and other rules prompted an Illinois farmer to confront Obama on Aug. . “Mother Nature has really challenged us this growing season,” said the unidentified corn and soybean farmer at a town hall in Atkinson, Ill. “Please don’t challenge us with more rules and regulations from Washington, D.C., that hinder us from doing that. We would prefer to start our day in a tractor cab or combine cab rather than filling out forms and permits.” Obama told the farmer, “Don’t always believe what you hear.” But the has indeed proposed regulating dust as well as noise pollution, cement, and water run-off. Combined, all proposed rules could be the “most costly, burdensome, expansive set of job-killing regulations ever crafted,” writes R. Bruce Josten with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Email: lpitts@worldmag.com
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SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS OBAMA: CHARLIE NEIBERGALL/AP • BOEING: BRUCE SMITH/AP • SUNSTEIN: AP • MAP: © DOW JONES & COMPANY, INC.
Following a disappointing Labor Department report showing now no job growth in August, President Obama on Sept. ordered the withdrawal of ’s new national smog standards. Republicans praised the halt to costly restrictions, but Obama’s late August appointment of Alan Krueger as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers raised other concerns. The Princeton economist has a resume thin on real-world business experiences, and he has supported both a value added tax (paid during production and adding to the price of goods) and a national energy tax. (The concept that businesses should pay more in taxes is of particular concern to Greensboro’s Larry Diana: “I couldn’t disagree with that more.”) Meanwhile Vice President Joe Biden told reporters on Aug. , “I think the economy does need more stimulus.” At the time of its passage in , administration officials predicted that the roughly billion initial stimulus package would keep the unemployment rate below percent. That didn’t happen. With Congress back from its recess, House Republicans are set to move on a series of bills aimed at slowing the regulatory flood. Pending legislation includes preventing the from interfering in the Boeing Company’s efforts to open a plant in non-union South Carolina. Other bills tackle ongoing federal efforts to regulate cross-state air pollution, boilers, cement, coal ash, and farm dust. The House also will consider a bill to require an up-or-down vote in Congress for every major business regulation. But such efforts would not likely survive a Senate vote or the president’s veto pen. With percent of small business owners listing government activities as their single greatest obstacle to hiring, the ’s Magnuson says the best hope for business owners may be that the government does no additional harm: “They need the government to stand down.” A —with reporting by Joel Hannahs
Christian training programs are working hard to help their students become employable and, in some cases, employed B Y A N G E L A L U I N S T. L O U I S PHOTOGRAPHY BY SID HASTINGS/GENESIS
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in human resources, Lane Hardier knows a thing or two about how to get a job. “Don’t look at the qualifications of a job, but the tasks that the job requires,” he always tells job seekers. Following his retirement in , Hardier has helped some St. Louis-unemployed find jobs, but it’s tough: Since he began a job-help program at his church, Central Presbyterian, in October , people have gone through the three-month course, but so far only eight have found full-time jobs. The church’s main campus is in Clayton, an inner-ring suburb of St. Louis, and Hardier sees the Central Presbyterian congregation as a microcosm of the country, with both highskilled and entry-level seekers out of work. “Many [of the unemployed] had a job for a long time and don’t have a clue how to get out in this difficult job market,” Hardier said. With many companies tightening budgets, human resource departments are often the first cut, making the process even more impersonal. Hardier’s church program uses Crossroads Career Network, a Christian job training service that helps job seekers determine their interests and strengths, then teaches them how to find a fitting job. He meets with the students one-on-one every week to discuss the material and mentor them through their job search. “We have had varying levels of success,” he said. “Those who are highly motivated put in the hard work to move through the program quickly, while others struggle and never get through.” For residents of St. Louis, it’s easy to become frustrated with the job search: The city has lost many of its corporate headquarters and manufacturing jobs in the past decade. Hardier often sees his students losing hope after sending out SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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job applications week after week without hearing back from the companies: “Those people have been employed most of their life, and their self-worth and self-esteem are tied to that.” Hardier prays with them and brings them back to the promises in the Bible—that God is the one in control and that He will provide for those who trust in Him, although not necessarily as we might expect. Hardier also refers them to ministers and other resources at the church. Christina Mitas, a recent college graduate, read about the program in the church bulletin. The -year-old had graduated with a degree in business administration and felt dissatisfied with her job at a dry cleaning store. She started meeting with Hardier after work, and the sessions helped determine what she wanted to do and how to go about achieving it: “Lane had lots of experience with interviews and I learned things that I couldn’t have paid for.” About two months after she started the program, Hardier encouraged her to attend a job fair where she found a mortgage company that was hiring. She applied for a loan officer position and has worked at the company for a year. Her new work is a big step up from dry cleaning: “It’s hard, but I’ve learned so much here—it’s very beneficial.”
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of the St. Louis area, the impoverished Wellston neighborhood, a warehouse filled with scrap metal five years ago is now a woodworking shop, with power saws and woodcutters and the smell of wood shavings in the air. One morning last month at the shop on the corner of Plymouth and Stephen Jones, four men were ending their first-week orientation for more weeks of Bible study, financial management, critical thinking, and job training in carpentry. Master carpenter Jim McGarry and his wife Tammy started More than Carpentry in Wellston with the goal of helping “the least qualified people that other companies don’t want. We give them more skills, knowledge, and preparation, and send them out.” The “least qualified” have to want to improve their lives: Classes run Monday through Friday from to , and attendance is crucial: “We give them more grace than other businesses, but we still hold them to high expectation,” McGarry said. Almost percent of the residents in the largely AfricanAmerican neighborhood are poor. Only percent have a high school diploma, and many of the high schools in the area have lost accreditation. The McGarrys had considered doing mission work in Bolivia but saw a greater need in their own backyard. Wellston, the fourth poorest city in Missouri, is just two miles from prestigious Washington University, but with crumbling houses and stretches of empty lots, it seems worlds away. At first Wellston residents saw the McGarrys as outsiders, but after they spent three years cleaning up the lot and moved into a
nearby house with their children, the McGarrys became neighbors, not invaders. In the back of the workshop, Keith Dorsay, one of the first graduates of the cabinet-making class in , now works as a paid apprentice helping McGarry make custom furniture for customers. The income is used to support the program, which offers apprenticeships for all who complete the course. The goal is that with three to four years of experience, More Than Carpentry graduates can earn their journeyman certification and find jobs at other businesses. Dorsay heard about the program while working to renovate the warehouse as a side job. McGarry noticed his diligence hanging up drywall and asked if he was interested in carpentry. “It’s in my blood,” Dorsay said— his grandfather and uncle were both carpenters. He learned during the past year that the work is hard but the payoff is worth it: “Seeing finished work … it’s such a feeling you get when you see it, you sit back and marvel at it.” For a mid-morning break, the new students gathered around a table in an
adjacent classroom with Dorsay and the instructors to discuss their experience so far and expectations. Wesley Tyler, a quiet -something with dreadlocks, says he joined More Than Carpentry to make changes in the right direction: “This is more than a job, it’s a new avenue—working with tools and wood and individual techniques, the Bible study, mentoring—it’s good WOOD WORKING: Students and instructors work on a custom piece of furniture at More Than Carpentry Christian Ministries; Jim and Tammy McGarry (right).
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stuff.” His routine has changed: “My personal life was crazy, but now I’m pretty boring. Now I’m home at p.m. and I’m like ‘What am I doing?’ But I love it.” Titus Maclin, who has worked in construction for - years, wanted to get to the roots of carpentry. He’s now learning about finishing wood but much more: “The spiritual aspect of [the class] grounds you, to the point where you know what it’s like to stay prayed up. It feels like family, it’s a family; we stick together and encourage one another.” Joining the class was a big change for Maclin: “I’m no spring chicken anymore. My kids are at school, and now I’m coming back home to read a book—I never do that.” Tammy McGarry has learned that most residents of Wellston aren’t familiar with the concept of hard work. She says many of the men in the area choose instead to make quick money selling drugs—sometimes thousands of dollars in just a few hours. Most don’t have father figures in their lives to model hard work. Many have committed crimes and done jail time, and know that companies don’t want to risk hiring an ex-felon. “They are filled with rejection and feeling like they can’t contribute to society,” Tammy said. “You gain dignity by supporting yourself.” An older woman in Wellston once told Tammy that all their men are either headed to the grave or to jail, with no dreams or goals for their future. McGarry tries to instill in these men a vision of what their life could be like. He took one class on a field trip to a local commercial cabinet-making business. It’s now shown interest in hiring More Than Carpentry graduates.
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in St. Louis’ Tower Grove neighborhood, -year-old Darren Jackson is trying to improve his part of the neighborhood. Currently the director of Jobs for Life with the Christian nonprofit Mission: St. Louis (), Jackson moved into the neighborhood and started striking up conversations with other young men on the street corner. The men quickly accepted him because “I look like them and we have a lot of the same background experience.” Jackson started a discipleship group that met at McDonald’s on Thursdays. The group grew from two to men who met weekly at executive director Josh Wilson’s house, where they would open up about problems. But after a while more than half of them drifted away or slipped back to their old lifestyle. When Jackson asked why, they said that as much as they liked the group, they had more pressing needs—to eat, to support their kids, and to pay rent. Jackson thought about starting a business to hire these men, but realized that wasn’t a solution: “We realized, man, these dudes aren’t employable, we would be serving them an injustice if we were to give them jobs. That’s not empowering them.” Last spring he started a job-training program that created a support group for these men—mentors, instructors, and small groups that would be there for SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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them even after the eight-week program finished. Jobs for Life helps them work through emotional roadblocks, teaches them “soft skills,” and also prepares them to apply for jobs and attend interviews. Each class ends with a good news message—a Bible verse, video, spoken word, or testimony— that explains why the class exists. Jobs for Life will be starting its third class this September, this time partnering with the board of probation and parole so that clients can choose Jobs for Life to fulfill their requirement of looking for a job after being released. So far, none of the Jobs for Life students has graduated from the course, but two have been able to find jobs. Wilson says the age group Jobs for Life deals with—males between and — is known for being “unreachable.” He says they are “really lazy, they don’t want to work. They haven’t lived life long enough to figure out if they want to change it or not.” Often, looking for a career instead of another quick fix is a huge cultural shift. Many drop out when difficulties develop. That’s why support groups and relationships are so important, according to Jackson: “This isn’t just a program for you to get through. We live here, we are here all the time … and we care about you.” Jarred Banks, a student of the second class, used his relationships in Jobs for Life to find a job. The soft-spoken -year-old dropped out of high school in th grade and had recently been laid off from his job at the St. Louis Science Center when he met Jackson on his block earlier this summer.
Banks started coming to Jobs for Life, where he overcame his shyness, started connecting with his small group leader, Leonard Johnson, and gave up his former lifestyle because of a strict no drugs policy. Banks’ perspective: “I didn’t really have to give nothing up but sitting down … it was worth it, because before I’d be sitting down and broke, but now I’m talking and actually enjoying myself.” Johnson, who owns a contracting construction business, hired Banks after seeing him make great strides in his first month in the program. Banks now works full-time gutting houses, painting, and doing other minor work. Johnson praises Banks as a hard worker and a fast learner. Banks sees Johnson as his “best friend” and says, “In the future I’ll look back at myself and like, I actually accomplished something, because I never accomplished not hing.” The greatest help to the program has been the buy-in from local businesses, ’ Wilson said. A housing developer has come by the class, teaching students how to fill out applications. The owner of a used car lot has hired Jobs for Life men to detail cars, but has also fired them—rightly so, Wilson said. He believes sometimes the best way to love these men is to give them a realistic expectation of what the workforce demands. A STREET LIFE: Darren Jackson of the Jobs for Life ministry sits outside the organization’s offices in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood of St. Louis.
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God’s Outlaw: The Story of William Tyndale
John Wycliffe: The Morning Star Wesley: A Heart Transformed Can Change the World
A true story, God’s Outlaw is about international politics, church intrigue, cold-blooded betrayal, and false justice ending in a criminal’s death. But it’s also about victorious faith and spiritual triumph over some of the greatest political and religious forces known in the 16th century. A simple God-seeking man, William Tyndale somehow became one of the most wanted men in England and all of Europe. Pursued by King Henry VIII and Sir Thomas More, Tyndale darted across Europe to avoid capture, always pushing to complete the task that obsessed him — to translate the Bible into English and publish it for his fellow countrymen. Starring Roger Rees. Drama, 93 minutes. DVD - #4737D,
19.99
John Wycliffe is a dramatic biography of the life of the 14th-century scholar and cleric who translated the Bible into English for the first time. Wycliffe found himself in the middle of religious, political and social conflicts. An Oxford scholar, one of Europe’s most renowned philosophers, he was a defender of English nationalism against the power of the pope and a champion of the poor against the injustices of the rich. John Wycliffe taught that God’s forgiveness cannot be bought with indulgences. He preached that the only true authority is the Word of God, and the Word could only be understood by all if the people could read it in their native tongue. John Wycliffe captures the trials and heroic struggles of this significant man of faith — the “Morning Star” of the Reformation. Drama, 75 minutes.
$
DVD - #4808D,
Step into eighteenthcentury England and experience the transformation of one man, whose heartwrenching search for peace haunts him even as he pours himself into a life of service and evangelism. This feature film, based on the personal diaries of John Wesley, is a story that reads like a Hollywood screenplay—house fire, near shipwreck on the high seas, adventure in a new world, and ill-fated romance! Uncover Wesley’s spiritual struggle and renewal as never before. Directed by the Reverend John Jackman, this feature-length film stars Burgess Jenkins, June Lockhart, Kevin McCarthy, R. Keith Harris, and Carrie Anne Hunt. Drama, 117 minutes.
19.99
$
DVD - #501370D,
19.99
$
The Radicals
Martin Luther
John Hus
The year is 1525. Michael and Margaretha Sattler have fled their religious orders. Their quest: to restore the church to the purity of its early days when communities of believers practiced peace, compassion and sacrificial love. The Sattlers join a group called the Anabaptists and together challenge the 1,000 year control of the Church by the State. They call for baptism to once again become, not a mark of citizenship, but an adult and voluntary decision to follow Christ. As their movement grows, so does the determination of their enemies to stop them...by any means necessary. In 1527, Michael is burned at the stake and Margaretha drowned. But their movement survives and today is carried on by the Mennonites, Mennonite Brethren, Brethren in Christ, the Hutterites, and the Amish. Viewer discretion advised. Drama, 99 minutes.
Here is the dramatic black and white classic film of Martin Luther’s life made in the 1950’s. This film was originally released in theaters worldwide and nominated for an Academy Award. It is a magnificent depiction of Luther and the forces at work in the surrounding society that resulted in his historic reforming efforts. The film traces Martin Luther’s life from a guilt-burdened monk to his eventual break with the Roman Church. In spite of its age, this film continues to be a popular resource to introduce Martin Luther’s life. This special 50th anniversary edition includes “The making of,” biographies of the actors, and a full-color tour of Luther sites. Drama, 105 minutes.
Here is an important chapter in the steps leading up to the Reformation. The history books make little mention of this Bohemian priest and scholar who lived 100 years before Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. Yet, John Hus was convinced and taught openly that the Bible should be presented in the language of the people, that salvation comes by faith in Jesus Christ, and the Word of God is the final authority. Intrigue and false promises weave a powerful story of this man’s commitment to faith in Jesus Christ. He was summoned to the Council of Constance and promised safety, but he was betrayed. In the end, Hus was accused, imprisoned, and charged with heresy. Ultimately, he was condemned and burned at the stake as a heretic. Drama, 55 minutes.
DVD - #4804D,
19.
$
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DVD - #4623D,
14.99
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DVD - #4783D,
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Purchase any three DVDs above for only $29.97 or all six for only $49.98! Use promo code “REFORM” when ordering to receive this special price. This offer is good until October 31, 2011. TO ORDER, CALL:
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19 JOBS.indd 41
Please reference code “WM0911” in catalog source field, and use promotional code “REFORM” at step 4 of the checkout process.
9/6/11 9:53 AM
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Econ 101 Teaching about money shouldn’t wait until high school or college— and it’s inner-city schools and a new economics program that are leading the way to elementary financial literacy by Joel Belz in Columbus, Ohio • photos by Neal C. Lauron/Genesis When fourth-grader Kadayah Keys casually stops by the store at Harambee Christian School here to buy a granola bar for her mid-morning snack, a lot more goes on than a simple commercial transaction. Kadayah pays for her granola bar not with cash, nor even with an old-fashioned debit card. Instead, she quickly enters her student Id—and the transaction is cashless, cardless, and paperless. But she’s not being taught some bad habits as a consumer: Kadayah, instead of charging a purchase to be paid back later, is simply deducting the cost of the bar from credit she has previously built up in a school account. Within the hour, she’ll be checking the status of her account. If you quizzed her carefully, Kadayah could probably tell you a half-dozen sophisticated details about how her midmorning purchase affects her overall economic well-being. Kadayah could tell you about opportunity costs, compound interest, margin, and profit. She can do that because of a program called “Infusionomics”—a co-curricular approach now used by a small network of schools to equip inner-city boys and girls with the economic and financial literacy they need to thrive in the mainstream economy. Before the school day is over, Kadayah will have bumped into the all-but-invisible Infusionomics program at least a dozen more times. There’s no Infusionomics class to go to. No Infusionomics lecture. No Infusionomics textbook. But the ideas and the emphasis are always there—just like economic concepts are always present in every facet of real life. Through Infusionomics, discussion of economic theory regularly sneaks into the math program, into history and literature, and into science as well. To help Kadayah keep track of so complex a cause-andeffect system, a school-wide computer system deftly augments Infusionomics with a system called “Economis” that she, along with the other 104 Harambee students, access and exit repeatedly through the school day. “Did I get extra ‘bling’ in my DOES IT WORK? Just ask personal account,” a student may Harambee third-grade ask himself, “for that A I earned teacher Jim Flaherty, going over math problems. in music yesterday?” (“Bling” is
the unit of exchange in the Harambee economy—and different individual schools use different approaches.) “How many bling did I lose in my account for being tardy for gym?” Because the answers have such practical consequences, affecting their ability to buy and sell, students pay close attention. By design, Infusionomics and Economis steer the whole school experience away from some abstract other-worldly academic approach. They place students (as in real life) within a context of checking accounts, savings accounts, taxes, interest, the in-school store, and even an in-school profit-making business. This sophisticated and holistic instructional approach is happening here at Harambee—and at half a dozen other schools around the nation—because of the unusual cooperation of a handful of visionary individuals and organizations. They include: i StreetSchool Network—a loose nationwide gathering of mostly private Christian schools ministering to minorities in inner-city settings. i The Powell Center for Economic Literacy, based in Charlottesville, Va. i Sagamore Institute, a market-oriented think tank in Indianapolis, Ind. i Central Ohio Youth for Christ of Columbus, Ohio, and its “renaissance man” director, Scott Arnold. Not to be ignored: Private donors over the last five years have invested more than $2.5 million in the project. These funders value collaborative ventures and have been the glue holding together such a multi-party team. All the key players lament the dismal level of American economic and financial literacy. As Sagamore’s Amy Sherman reports, “In one recent study of economic awareness among high school seniors, the average test score was 47.5 percent—a solid F. Real hope for America’s long term economic future rests with the next generation.” Against that backdrop, the project funders began trying six years ago to link the efforts of several of the organizations. The Powell Center in Virginia, for example, had done good work developing a secular, K-12 curriculum in economic
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PRACTICAL: Scott Arnold visits a City Life class for single mothers literacy—butnooneoutsidetheeliteCollegiateSchoolin preparing for their GED (left); Harambee principal Alex Steinman Richmondwasusingit.Mightitbesuitable—oradaptable—for greets kindergarten students on their way to class. someoftheinner-citykidswithwhomStreetSchoolNetwork (SSN)andSagamoreInstitutewereworking?Andwhatwould Increasingly,theteamsensedthattheprojectwas ittaketointegratethoseeffortswithaspecificallybiblical doomedtofailunlessthreecriteriaweremet:Theprogram frameworkofthinking? hadtoseemrelevanttothekids.Ithadtobeeasyforteachers In2006,PowellinvitedteachersfromtheSSNto tolearnanduse.Andithadtobefun. RichmondtoreceivetraininginteachOverthenextseveralyears,Powell ingeconomics.Theurbanpractitioners andSSNdesignedandimplemented wereskepticalatfirst,butthenbegan KEYSTONE PRINCIPLES economicliteracytrainingforteachers tograsptheprofoundvalueofwhat In the Infusionomics approach, nine anddevelopedlessonsaroundnine theywerelearning.SSNvicepresident foundational principles get special foundational“KeystoneEconomic ToddGoblerecalls,“Westartedrealizing attention and emphasis. Woven Principles”(seesidebar). thattheseprinciples—aboutcost-benefit regularly not just into explicit Meanwhile,ShermanandScott analysisandopportunitycostsand discussions about economics but ArnoldfromCOYFCledtheafter-school short-andlong-termconsequences— every other subject in the curriculum trackfocusingonfinancialliteracy. wereincrediblyrelevantforthelife as well, they are: Arnoldandhiscomputer-savvycolskillswe’retryingtoequipourkids 1. We all make choices. leagueBryanGintzhaddevelopedthe with. This is the kind of practical 2. There ain’t no such thing as a EconomissoftwareforuseintheirCity knowledgethatcanhelpthemclimb free lunch. LifecenterinColumbus’nearwest outofpoverty.” 3. All choices have consequences. side.Infiveyearsofexperienceashead Soon,Sherman,Goble,andleaders 4. Economic systems influence ofthelocalYouthforChrist,Arnold fromPowellandCentralOhioYouth choices. hadcometoknowfirsthandhow forChrist(COYFC)werejoiningforces 5. Incentives produce “predictable” practicalyouhadtobewiththeyoung todesignatwo-trackstrategytoteach responses. people.Nohigh-soundingtheories.No keyeconomicconcepts(likescarcity 6. Do what you do best; trade for abstractions.Whatyoutaughthadto andmargin)alongsidefinanciallife the rest. makesenseintherealworld.So skills(likecontrollingone’scheckbook 7. Economic thinking is marginal Economisprovidesalivelyinteractive andcreditcards).Andthepartners thinking. onlinevirtualeconomy—writteninthe determinedtofocusonbothschools 8. Quantity and quality of available languageoftheyouthwhowoulduse andafter-schoolministries(like resources impact living it,butfullyconsistentwiththeheavyCOYFC)reachingdisadvantaged,urban standards. dutycontentSherman,Powell,andSSN kids. 9. Prices are determined by the market forces of supply and demand—and are constantly changing. 44 W O R L D S E P T E M B E R 2 4 , 2 0 1 1
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were assembling. Over 1,100 urban youth participated in Economis in the demonstration project Sherman oversaw in East Palo Alto, Calif., Indianapolis, Memphis, Miami, and Richmond. Through Economis, students earn “currency” for various kinds of behavior and accomplishment. That currency is deposited like a weekly paycheck in individual accounts— minus “taxes.” With what’s left, students can invest in an interest-bearing savings account, in virtual CDs, or in a stock portfolio synchronized with real-world stocks at real-world prices. Or, like Kadayah, they can splurge at the school store. But, Sherman says, the infusion of basic concepts powerfully curbs the temptation to splurge. Teachers weave the set of nine Keystone Principles into the standard curriculum— and students come, little by little, to recognize those concepts at work. The whole enterprise, Sherman stresses, is theologically rooted in a “creation-fall-redemptionconsummation narrative of a distinctly Christian and biblical outlook.” Does it work? Ask the teachers who have led the way. Harambee’s third-grade teacher Jim Flaherty estimates he’s gained an average of 2.5 hours of instructional time in his classroom every week—just because everyone’s thinking in a more orderly way. Punctuality and classroom behavior have shown marked improvement. Or ask principal Alex Steinman, who says the combination of Infusionomics and Economis has helped Harambee achieve some impressive academic goals. Where public schools serving the same neighborhood as Harambee typically perform around the 20th percentile on Metropolitan Achievement tests, Harambee students are regularly at the 50th percentile. And Sherman’s five-city demonstration project shows kids increasing their financial literacy by 26 percent, based on pre- and post-tests. Now, the team behind Infusionomics and Economis is eager to see the programs applied and tested in more mainstream Christian school and homeschool settings. “If this works— and we think it does—in an inner-city setting, why wouldn’t it work where we don’t have to compensate for so many disadvantages?” asks one fifth-grade teacher. The same teacher noted, though, that ignorance of key economic principles is probably just as profound in mainstream school settings as in inner-city schools. “That’s why our economy—and that of the world at large—are in the mess they’re in,” he said. So the team of innovators is now repackaging the program for broader use and reviewing finances, including the hardware and software costs of Economis. The next big challenge will be to take it all to a wider circle of schools, and to persuade teachers and administrators of the importance of revising some long-standing habits. Todd Goble, project leader for Infusionomics, sums it up like this: “The most important thing we do is to help students make intelligent choices—choices in which they consider the consequences of their decisions. If it’s true, as someone said, that one’s character is the sum total of hundreds of little choices we make every day, then we’re not just helping them to think better. We’re helping them build solid character. And they’ll need both to thrive in the century ahead.” A
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Changing the financial culture Economis software developer Scott Arnold found a way to give kids more “financial hitting power” Scott Arnold isn’t the sort of fellow you’d expect to produce a complex piece of financial software. He didn’t expect it himself: “I’m probably missing a few brain cells,” he says in a self-deprecating moment. Arnold arrived here on the near west side of Columbus, Ohio, in 1992, committed to a ministry of evangelism, discipleship, and leadership development. He had all sorts of opportunities for “social ministry,” but that wasn’t his calling: “I had ringing in my ears that if I got involved in ‘social ministry,’ it meant I was going liberal.” But after three or four years, “I hollered ‘uncle.’” All Arnold could see at that point were families without dads and young moms whose worlds offered nothing but illegal and immoral ways to support their needy families: “The kids who were in my Bible studies all faced internal struggles over whether to follow God—or this other path. And time after time, the other path won out. Time after time, I’d watch helplessly as they withdrew from the Bible studies.” What was missing? Arnold realized the kids needed to learn what the economic drivers were all about. They needed to find ways to generate more “financial hitting power.” They needed to learn how to manage what they generated. Arnold remembers one family’s winning $60,000 in a lottery—and before anybody knew what happened, the $60,000 was gone. The family couldn’t afford summer camp for their daughter. It was a wakeup call. “I knew a banker, and I knew a stockbroker. Maybe they could tell the kids what they needed to learn. But kids have an aversion to talking heads.” Arnold’s undergraduate background was in psychology, and he knew that abstractions were futile. The kids he sought to influence were “tactile learners,” so Arnold asked, “‘Could we replicate a paycheck? Could we help the kids deposit that paycheck—minus taxes and insurance?’ A friend suggested a time clock to promote accountability. Pretty soon, we were weaving all these things together.” A charitable foundation gave $150,000—and later, a good bit more. “We were up and running, and after a whole lot of testing and debugging, we were ready to try the software in a small variety of settings.” But Arnold stresses that the big challenge is not the development, installation, and use of the Economis software. “The big challenge is a shift in thinking by leaders, teachers, and administrators. It changes the culture of a place,” he said. “It’s very much God’s reality. It’s God’s grid for seeing things—but it’s a good bit different from what a lot of people are used to.” —J.B.
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UNEXPECTED FORCE: A man walks his dog in Richmond, Va., on Aug. . DEAN HOFFMEYER/RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH/AP
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Calm amıdst the storm Hurricane Irene’s many victims rely on volunteer cleanup crews even as they ready for the next possible storm by EDWARD LEE PITTS in Richmond, Va.
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A : .. A. , Lisa Thompson thought her Chester, Va. home had survived the worst of Hurricane Irene. So she got ready for bed. “That’s when I heard the boom,” said Thompson of the noise that caused her whole house to shake. “I ran out in a hurry.” A tree had crashed into her home’s covered deck. By the time the storm finally left, four trees had fallen in the yards of two homes Thompson owns in the same community just outside of Richmond. “I love trees, but now I’m a little afraid of them,” she said. Irene’s fury failed to cause expected damage in East Coast centers like New York and Washington, but it left dead in states and left millions with lost power and damaged homes in inland locales off the media radar. Because of the storm size, early cost estimates for damage range from billon to as high as billion, likely making it one of the costliest disasters in the nation’s history. The federal government estimates that wind damage alone could cost more than billion. In central Virginia, Richmond and surrounding areas were hard hit thanks to hours of sustained winds gusting at more than mph. “We have a big deductible here, so we’d have to clean this up ourselves, and we are getting old,” said Thompson, . Five days after the storm, a team of five volunteers with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia was busy removing downed trees from her backyard. It was the first of three jobs for the team in early September that includes a recent high school graduate and several retirees. When the team offered to help, Thompson’s first thought was, “If something is free it is usually too good to be true.” But when the team took up their chainsaws at her house, they joined other chainsaws and humming generators echoing throughout the neighborhood.
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FeaR & unceRtainty Flood rains hit Vermont’s neediest hardest by Tiffany Owens
The worst flooding in Vermont in over 40 years occurred after Irene dumped seven inches of rain on the state on Aug. 28. The water overwhelmed historic bridges, washed out more than 260 roads and stranded residents in several towns. “We had to drive around the entire state,” said Lt. Jason Brake with The Salvation Army who traveled from Maine to provide relief to Vermont’s hardest hit areas. “There are parts of the roads that are totally impassable, swallowed by the river.” In Waterbury, Vt., Marilyn Reynolds, watching a nearby river suddenly surge toward her home, grabbed a purse and sweatshirt before driving to higher ground. “I was in denial,” Reynolds admitted. “I was shaking like a leaf … I just couldn’t believe it.” She moved to wait at a church until she could make it to her sister’s house in Barre, 20 miles away. They waited a day for the water to recede and then went to survey the damage: Two and
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Main Street in Waterbury, Vt.
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Team leader Wes Stringer, 37 of Abingdon, Va., said, “A lot of us guys who volunteer love this kind of stuff.” Harold Griffith, 68, of Boones Mill, Va., attacked the downed trees with his chainsaw while hobbling around on a bad knee. Only two of the volunteers knew each other before meeting up to work at the Thompson residence, but they began the day with an early devotion, and by lunchtime had stacked eight levels of firewood from one fallen oak tree. The crew also decided to remove a hickory tree that remained standing but with its top sheared off at a dangerous angle. Thompson said the church volunteers probably saved her thousands of dollars. A lot of people caught in Irene’s path hoped for similar aid. The widespread flooding soaked crops and homes from North Carolina to Vermont. But many homeowners in the Northeast do not carry flood insurance, which is excluded in most standard policies.
In the flood-damaged area of Hampton closer to Virginia’s coast, more than 100 volunteers with Virginia’s Southern Baptists assisted families. They prepared over 13,500 meals in the first three days after the storm, and flood recovery teams spent the week enduring a heat wave in sealed protection suits while tearing out water-soaked insulation and unloading buckets of mud and silt from area homes. With a spate of weather-related disasters this year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has less than $800 million left in its disaster relief fund—with $400 billion in claims already pending for other recovery efforts before hurricane. Soon after Irene struck, FEMA announced that it would halt new repair projects in mostly Southern and Midwestern states ravaged by the year’s tornadoes. Those dollars will be diverted to Irene, but not without a storm of complaints from the tornado states. Dwindling funds for disaster relief sets up a congressional showdown this fall over a supplemental budget increase for
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stORm chaseRs: Samaritan’s Purse volunteers remove tree limbs in Askewville, N.C.; fallen trees in Alexandria, va.; volunteers clean up Main Street in Margaretville, N.y. (from left to right).
FEMA. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor—from Irene-devastated Virginia—and other top Republicans have said that additional money for disaster relief should be offset by other cuts. When Republicans approved an additional $1 billion to FEMA after the Midwest storms this year, they found cuts elsewhere to cover the increased aid. This time such efforts have met with criticism from even other fiscal conservatives. “We don’t have time to wait for folks in Congress to figure out how they want to offset this stuff with the budget cuts,” said New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. “Our people are suffering now. And they need support now.”
a half feet of water, mixed with kerosene and thick mud, had flooded her trailer home. “I walked in … the mud was so thick and everything was upside down,” said Joyce Dutil, Reynolds’ sister. She picked up Reynolds’ waterlogged wedding albums, and along with other family and friends tried to salvage dishes and other personal belongings. Reynolds is in her mid-60s, living off a small part-time job and Social Security. Now she isn’t sure where to go. “I don’t know what to do,” she said, “I’ve been praying a lot, asking the Lord to show me what to do.” She spoke of her late husband, her voice shaking slightly: “We built everything together … I wish he were here to help me.” Reynolds isn’t sure if she’ll get a new trailer or an apartment or what financial help may be available—though some assistance seems likely from FEMA, The Salvation Army, and the Red Cross. She had no flood insurance and apartments in her area go for five times the rental cost of her trailer: “I feel like a door is closing on me and I’ve got to turn my life around.”
Plenty of work remains for chainsaw crews around the region, and nearly one week after the storm more than half a million homes still lacked electricity—down from 7.5 million in Irene’s immediate aftermath. That included many in the Chester, Va., neighborhood where Thompson has lived for 35 years. Trees remained down in the backyards of three surrounding yards—including two that devastated homes into crumpled masses of mud, roofing material, dry wall, and limbs. As long as the power stayed out, extension cords ran from house to house as neighbors shared generators, and windows stayed open to catch any breeze in the absence of air conditioning. With more storms brewing in the Atlantic and the Gulf (one week after Irene, Tropical Storm Lee dumped more than a foot of rain in Gulf Coast areas over Labor Day weekend), these residents realize their post-hurricane routine may not be over soon: using camping stoves to boil hot water for coffee, backyard fences to dry clothes, and neighbors swapping breakfast in exchange for generator use. At the Thompson home, chainsaw master Griffith carved the shape of a cross into a remaining stump while the rest of his Southern Baptist disaster relief team raked leaves and hauled brush away in wheel barrows. “That’s going to stay up as a nice reminder,” said Thompson as she came outside to offer the crew a cooler of drinks. The team huddled around Thompson and presented her with a Bible they had signed, and finished the day’s work by praying with her. “God, sometimes we don’t understand why things happen,” said Stringer. “Through all of this we pray we can say God is good. You always provide for us.” A SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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FOOD, WATER, & SOME RAIN NEEDED Victims of the Horn of Africa famine aren’t through suffering by mindy belz | photography by melanie blanding/genesis
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H A farmers are waiting for rains that usually arrive in October. The seasonal rains cannot come too early for those suffering famine conditions brought on by the worst drought in years—and by Somalian militants and others who have blocked aid and development. Since officials declared Somalia and parts of Ethiopia and Kenya under famine in July, the caseload of those requiring food aid has grown exponentially, to over million. In Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp needy Somalis are arriving at the rate of about per day, say aid groups working there. That’s down from the , to , that were showing up every day in July. Zeinab Abdi Wajir said she walked for two months from her village Garissa, a Kenyan city near Dadaab and had no place to stay after two weeks there and learning about overcrowded conditions at Dadaab. The camp was built to house , but over the summer swelled to more than a half a million as famine has worsened. Aid groups have been unable to keep pace with demand, so “old refugees,” some of whom have lived in Dadaab since civil war in Somalia began years ago, have organized their own
food distributions for new arrivals. Twice a month they share basmati rice (far right) from one of the camp’s community warehouses. The new arrivals receive pink ration cards (above right) they must display in order to receive the rations. Tensions have mounted as older residents have taken to rationing both food and water supplies distributed to the latest arrivals. New refugees also have overtaxed the camp’s medical facilities, where the for years has relied on private aid groups to supply both needed staff and medicine. Not surprisingly, the World Health Organization () is reporting a rapid spread of diseases like cholera and measles as families crowd into distribution points in search of food. Habibo Dubo arrived at a hospital run by the International Rescue Committee with her -year-old son (right, on cot with Habibo), her husband, and three other children after a -day trek from Somalia. The family said they lost all cattle that they owned to the drought. Samaritan’s Purse field worker Ruco Van Der Merwe said acute malnutrition rates among children his group has surveyed “are extremely, extremely high” despite one-month supplies of corn and soybeans now reaching famine-affected areas. Abdil Rashid Mohamed, an aid specialist in northeastern Kenya, said “Without food and water, they will die.”
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pioneers g n li o o h c s e m o h n a c ri e African-Am is on the rise by Tiffany Owens | photography by Gary fOnG / Genesis
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alifornian Vanessa Oden remembers the day homeschooling paid off. Her 4-year-old daughter looked at her and admitted that she loved her teacher. “I didn’t know who she was talking about. I thought maybe her ballet teacher, Sunday school teacher, and then she said, ‘You—you’re my favorite teacher. I love your school.’” Before homeschooling, Oden spent years teaching numerous grades and subjects in both public and private schools. She calls education “her thing” and loves teaching. But then she found herself with less freedom—“times in class when my hands were tied”—and fewer resources, with administrators saying she needed to teach children merely to pass state tests. She observed bullying, teen sex in school bathrooms, and teacher bias. Parents begged her to take children who were being left behind into her class: “There were some children who couldn’t count to 10.” Some kindergartners did well and Oden noticed them: They could read and write. They were independent and well-behaved. She kept digging and eventually found the common thread—the ones doing well were the ones who had been homeschooled. “First I was against it,” she admits. “I thought only teachers who were trained professionals should be teaching children.” That changed when the time came for Oden to place her own
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children in school—and she realized she didn’t want them there. Then she was laid off and had the time and resources to try something new. She and her husband chose to homeschool, joining the ranks of 100,000 homeschooling AfricanAmerican and multi-ethnic families. Cultural myths in many multi-ethnic communities have classified homeschooling as for “white people” only, but moms’ stories from Arizona to Harlem suggest that homeschooling is an option for everyone. Tomeka Colenburg from Arizona has no teaching certificate, but this is her second year of homeschooling. She remembers the moment she chose to homeschool. Students bullied her youngest at school, so Colenburg asked for help: “The principal had a nonchalant attitude. One of her responses was, ‘I have over 2,000 in this school. I can’t concentrate on one child every day.’ That’s when I looked at her and realized I would have to step up and do my part.” After researching homeschooling for a year, she narrowed her Google search to “African-American Homeschoolers in Arizona.” There were none. Why look for African-American homeschoolers, and not just homeschoolers? “Coming from an African-American standpoint, it’s literally a culture shock to your own people,” Colenburg explained. For her, finding people with similar cultural backgrounds was important: “It’s always good to have someone to relate to ... who has gone through the same PAYING OFF: Oden at negativity and criticism.” her classroom/home She also remembers when in California.
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POWERED BY FAITH
A W finds the funds to keep poor children in Christian schools W E S a Bible club at her Philadelphia house several years ago, she realized the fourth- and fifth-grade kids couldn’t write a full sentence: “The Philadelphia public school system was at least a grade behind academically. It scared me.” But she couldn’t afford to send her kids to a private Christian school until she discovered Faith First Educational Assistance, a tiny organization offering scholarships to financially needy K- students in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Faith First gave out small scholarships last year that ranged from to ,, but its founder, Alberta Wilson, has big dreams: “Even a scholarship can make the difference between a child remaining in a school or having to be withdrawn.” At , Wilson could have been just another statistic. She was pregnant and failed th grade twice. Her mom was an alcoholic. Her dad never satisfied her longing for spiritual leadership. She dabbled in Islam, New Age, Catholicism, and the hippie movement. After her daughter Kentina was born deaf in , Wilson enrolled in a workstudy program at a Philadelphia naval hospital and earned her .
In she professed faith in Christ: “I’d love to say that everything was peaches and cream from then on, but it was not. The one thing that did change was that the Lord Jesus was with me all the way.” A year later, she awoke to smoke billowing into her Philadelphia row house bedroom. She heard her father yelling, “Get out!” and ran to the window. The cold January air hit her face as she yanked it up, thinking her -year-old daughter was already downstairs. It was three stories down, with nobody to catch her—but she jumped anyway. When Wilson awoke in the hospital, her father told her Kentina had died in the flames. “I just began to scream,” Wilson said. Later she discovered her daughter had been in the third-story room that night. She was devastated but resolved not to be bitter: “God allowed it, I receive it and accept it, and I go on.” In the aftermath Wilson married, joined a church, and earned her doctorate in religious education. By , she was teaching in a Virginia seminary and several churches. She returned to Philadelphia in where the Wilsons and another couple started a Christian school: They
started with five students, no salaries, and in the bank. As the school expanded, she became “burdened” for families whose finances forced them to leave her school for innercity public schools. She resigned to start Faith First in Pennsylvania, then expanded it to Virginia. Since she has educated parents and legislators about school choice and pushed for tax credits for donor companies. Faith First restricts its scholarships to private, evangelical Christian schools. That limits her funding opportunities but increases her supply of stories: the little girl who prayed fervently to return to private school, the grandparents who adopted their biological grandchildren and couldn’t afford tuition, the child whose single mom was struggling to provide. One of this year’s stories concerns the Brisbanes of Virginia Beach. “My kids were taught by us and by the church to be followers of Christ, and the [public] school’s teachings didn’t line up,” said Melody Brisbane. Her son recently graduated from Gateway Christian School with honors thanks to the scholarship fund. On each email she sends, Wilson includes the slogan “Powered by faith.” Like the widow and the oil in Elijah’s day, she keeps giving until money runs out. Her husband of years, who is “sold out totally to what God has called us to do,” helps behind the scenes. “I want to give kids a godly environment and boundaries,” Wilson said. “I’m trying to help someone not go the road that I chose.” —Alicia Constant is a Virginia journalist
“advised” the parents either to hold him back a grade or move him to another school. Since then, she’s homeschooled all four of her children. Her youngest, Elizabeth, who runs two businesses and is a competitive golfer, will graduate at . The couple started to bridge the gap between mainstream homeschooling resources and black families that want to home educate, but are intimidated by the racial homogeneity in many homeschooling environments. “African-Americans aren’t going to come to an all-white organization,” Burges explained frankly. “If they do come they’re going to look for connection or familiarity.” That’s where comes in as a transition organization, helping ethnic families connect to mainstream resources and to each ot her, but also helping home education groups to connect to ethnic families.
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she told her family she would homeschool: “They looked at me like I was crazy.” Nevertheless, she began, and is now—with the help of a friend—writing her own curriculum. Colenburg says support networks gave her the “extra push” to keep going for the first, and most difficult, six months of her children’s transition from public school to home education. Now she is the Arizona representative for National Black Home Educators (), a network founded by Joyce Burges and her husband years ago. Louisiana resident Burges has watched home education become more popular in the AfricanAmerican community for practical reasons such as family togetherness, safety, and academic performance. Burges started homeschooling years ago after her son’s grades dropped and administrators at the private school
BY ALICIA CONSTANT
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Some parents make it without a support network: In Harlem, Dionne Hughes found everything she needed through online research. The middle-aged Virginia native had headed north to pursue acting. She made time to run a successful hair salon, adjust to New York City, and homeschool her son, Cleveland, all as a single mom. She turned to homeschooling after noticing his grades drop: “He was easily distracted, the classroom settings were pretty large, he faced a lot of peer pressure trying to fit in with the children from New York and was having a hard time respecting authority.” Hughes settled on homeschooling, especially when she found an A Beka curriculum tailored for homeschoolers—her son had used the program before in a private school and she knew the familiarity would help. Later she discovered Keystone International Middle School, a program that reduced her workload, taught Cleveland to be independent, and freed her to run her salon while managing his progress. Hughes, Colenburg, and Oden all pulled their children out of school, opting for home education—and it’s working. So why aren’t more African-American families keeping their children at home? Joyce Burges points to the history of desegregation: “A lot of black families believe the myth that white families wanted to pull their children out of the system ... a lot of blacks still have the stigma that homeschooling is a traitor’s movement.” Burges also points to money, saying that many black families don’t homeschool because they think it’s expensive. Many of them are single parents and not sure how to navigate homeschooling on one income. Some also fear that since they have no college degree, they can’t teach their children. But these parents have learned that homeschooling allows them to respond to the needs of their children. Hughes knows her son can’t focus for long periods of time, so she’s free to adjust the school schedule. Oden and Colenburg use local resources like museums, aquariums, and at-home gardens for class. They experience the learning process with their children.
Oden recalls the day her children did well at reading. She applauded them, then recalls: “They turned to me and said, ‘Mom, you taught us how to read.’ That meant a lot to me.” They also found state regulations not as intimidating as they thought they would be. When Erica Baker, also in Harlem, started homeschooling, she said, “A lot of white people reached out to me and told me I could do it just like they could.” Baker only had to file a letter of intent and keep up with state regulations. Colenburg followed a state program for testing until FAVORITE TEACHER: oden with she realized she was esperanza (5) and noah (4). exempt as a homeschool mom and was free to choose her own curriculum. These homeschoolers also like the freedom to highlight topics that matter to them. In Oden’s athome classroom, posters of the world, pictures of multi-ethnic heroes, and Bible verses decorate the wall. I asked Dell Self, a homeschooling mom in Memphis who runs Ebony Homeschoolers, whether African-American support groups run the risk of being ethnically exclusive. After all, critics once ridiculed homeschooling for handicapping students socially and emotionally, saying they’d never be able to interact with other children. Might not this be a danger for families who insist on black-only support groups or curricula that specifically use dark-skinned characters? Maybe, but Self points out that ethnic homogeneity is just not possible. “Homeschooling is not an island,” she says, meaning that in order to succeed, homeschoolers have to rely on each ot her, skin color aside. Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute in Salem, Ore., has monitored changes in homeschooling over the past 15 years. He says homeschooling is increasingly straying from past stereotypes and becoming more diverse: “There has been a clear and consistent broadening and deepening in the variety of people homeschooling.” Ray says the academic, social, and emotional success of homeschooled students is now generally accepted by the public, including more black families. In Arizona, Colenburg has learned that homeschooling is difficult but doable. She almost gave up during her first year, after months of exhaustion. Her children fluctuated between enjoying learning at home and wanting to be back with their friends—but Colenburg urges first-time homeschool parents not to give up. In Harlem, Baker agrees: “It’s a really intimate experience with your child. ... I wouldn’t have it any other way.” A sePTeMBeR 24, 2011
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It’s not about the dream VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer turns to a jellyfish for new inspiration, new ventures, and a new way of doing business by Megan Basham
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“M ,” a -year-old Phil Vischer, creator of VeggieTales and founder of Big Idea Productions, advised a interviewer in . At the time, the animated vegetables famed for their funny songs, witty banter, and Christian-themed stories were winning fans young and old all across the country. Sales of VeggieTales videos reached million in a single year and company revenues hovered around million. Big distributors came calling, as did Hollywood. Through it all, Vischer told himself to make no small plans and pursue a “Big Hairy Audacious Goa l,” a phrase he’d borrowed from the bestselling motivational book, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. The goal he finally settled on—he would become the next Walt Disney. But in the years that followed, Big Idea’s fortunes changed drastically. The company brought in executives who began budgeting based on projected future revenues rather than the revenues they actually had. The new leadership instituted massive hiring, often for people the company didn’t yet need. When expected sales increases failed to materialize, the company began borrowing heavily, using ownership of its popular characters as collateral. Then a break with their distributor led to a tangled, years-long lawsuit, and Vischer’s last hope at saving Big Idea—an expensive, ambitious film called Jonah—didn’t pan out. In Big Idea went bankrupt and Vischer lost ownership of Bob the Tomato, Larry the Cucumber, and the rest of the VeggieTales gang. What he gained, he says, was something far more valuable. I sat down with Vischer to ask him about the lessons of Big Idea’s downfall and how he’s applying them to his latest venture— Jellyfish Labs, whose video productions include a puppet-based children’s series aimed at teaching kids Bible literacy that Vischer describes as “the Muppets go to seminary.” Let’s start at the beginning: Before VeggieTales became an underground success, did you dream of Hollywood? I was always a shy kid. I grew up in Muscatine, Iowa, and I’ve always felt a bit on the outside looking in. Whether it was youth group or school, I was not outgoing, I was not on student council. So the feeling of being on the outside kind of naturally led me to think, “I can do this in my basement, I can do this on my own.” I thought, “I don’t want to move to L.A., that’s scary. I don’t want to go to New York—that’s scary. I’m going to sit in my basement in Muscatine, Iowa, and see if I can make a movie.” And you did. Well, yeah. You know there are those like Steven Spielberg—very outgoing, very gregarious—[who] absolutely wanted to do it through the system. As soon as he was out of high school he was sneaking onto the Universal lot and pretending he worked there. On the flip side there’s George Lucas—very introverted, hated the system. I’m much more of a George Lucas. PHOTO BY STEPHEN VOSLOO
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And these days you can work through the system and influence from the inside out or you can completely ignore it. One of the great advantages of technology today with the internet, Netflix, Vimeo, YouTube, and all those services is that you don’t have to use a distributor to find an audience. You found a huge audience, yet somewhere things went wrong. What happened? Left to my own devices, I will do everything in a garage with bucks and whatever resources I can find. But suddenly we went from having no money to having more money than we knew what to do with. And I went off track. Rather than seeking God and asking Him, “How do you want me to move forward?” I did some spiritual math and said, “OK, how could I have more impact? By just making my films or by building the next Disney?” And what do you need to build Disney? Well, you need executives. So I started hiring people from major studios, from big companies, and that’s when the garage band was officially retired. [Laughing] Nobody else was excited about doing things with bucks and a ball of baling twine. I got so frustrated one night that we seemed to be doing everything in a more expensive way than I thought we needed to that I said to my wife, “I’ll show them, I’ll just go start my own company!” And she looked at me like I was crazy and reminded me it was my company. It sounds like idolatry, as though there were a spiritual good to pursuing something bigger. Absolutely. My greatgrandfather was one of the first radio preachers in America. He went on the air in and preached every Sunday until he died in , at which point his show was the longest-running radio show in America. He had more than , people listening every week. Though I couldn’t have pinpointed it at the time, it was enormously influential in my thinking of, “OK, sure this is great, but how do I make it bigger? How can I do more faster?” Unfortunately, the question I ignored was, “How did God wire me?” Because He didn’t necessarily call me to see how big an organization I could build. Today when I talk to people, I spend a lot of time trying to get them to consider what is driving them. Why do you want to do what you say you want to do? Do you have peace in your life? Because if you’re stressed, if you’re worried, if you’re anxious, something ain’t right. Those aren’t the fruits of the Spirit. I wish someone had sat me down at some point and asked me those questions. How are you applying your experience with Big Idea to your new venture, Jellyfish Labs? My new company is called Jellyfish Labs because jellyfish can’t locomote. They can’t choose their own course. They can’t go from point A to point B. They can only stay in the current and trust the current to carry them where they need to be. Looking back on Big Idea, I was conceiving of myself as a big studly barracuda saying, “All right God, here’s what I’m going to do for you. Now you just stand back and bless it and watch me go!”
SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
WORLD
9/1/11 4:17 PM
ideal. We’re drinking a cocktail that’s a mix of the Protestant work ethic, the American dream, and the gospel. And we’ve intertwined them so completely that we can’t tell them apart anymore. Our gospel has become a gospel of following your dreams and being good so God will make all your dreams come true. It’s the Oprah god. So I had to peel that apart. I realized I’m not supposed to be pursuing impact, I’m supposed to be pursuing God. And when I pursue God I will have exactly as much impact as He wants me to have. Is there any place then for long-range ambitions and large goals, for “big ideas”? The goal at Jellyfish is to do no longrange planning, which is a little counter-cultural and counter-intuitive. But the way Paul and Barnabas did a ministry was to walk to a town, and if that town didn’t want them they’d shake the dust off their sandals. They wouldn’t sit there plotting for years on how to take over the town, they’d just say, “OK, the Holy Spirit is taking us elsewhere.” We have this American industrial thing where we want to build the McDonalds and Coca-Colas of evangelism and come up with formulas and systems that are guaranteed to work and it can be highly effective, but I don’t know that it’s highly Christian.
WORLD SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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HANDOUTS
After the bankruptcy I had kind of a forced sabbatical of three or four months of spending time with God and listening to Him. I looked back at the previous years and realized I had spent years trying to convince kids to behave Christianly without actually teaching them Christianity. And that was a pretty serious conviction. You can say, “Hey kids, be more forgiving because the Bible says so,” or “Hey kids, be more kind because the Bible says so!” But that isn’t Christianity, it’s morality. That realization led me to a quest to say, all right, I need a new vehicle for teaching where I can go in much, much deeper but still in a fun, lighthearted, witty way. For my new series, What’s in the Bible, I wanted to create the equivalent of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. It was this groundbreaking miniseries in the ’s that explained the entire world, the entire universe, to families. I want to do that with the Bible, not just for kids but for families. It’s not a kids’ show, it’s a family show. So I was acting like a big barracuda when in reality I’m a brainless, spineless bag of goo. And I only get my form when I stay in the current of God’s will and allow Him to carry me where He wants me to be. And that was such a huge shift for me from the American Christian
That sounds pretty radical in the current Christian business culture. I no longer use the word dream as a noun describing a goal. We misinterpret passages from the Bible like, “For lack of vision the people perish.” From that we run off and go, “Oh, we’ve got to have vision, we’ve got to have dreams!” But it was Henry Blackaby who first pointed out to me that when we interpret that verse to apply to our ambitions, we’re completely misinterpreting it. A better, contemporary translation is, “For lack of revelation the people throw off restraint.” We’re not called to be a people of vision, we’re called to be a people of revelation. God speaks and we follow. We’ve completely taken this Disney notion of “when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true” and melded that with faith and come up with something completely different. There’s something wrong in a culture that preaches nothing is more sacred than your dream. I mean, we walk away from marriages to follow our dreams. We abandon children to follow our dreams. We hurt people in the name of our dreams, which as a Christian is just preposterous. That doesn’t mean I just sit here waiting for God to hand me a Post-it note with tomorrow’s agenda. But I brainstorm, I have ideas, I put them on the wall, and I pray about them. Then one of those ideas will start to percolate a bit, start to bubble, and then I chase the bubble to see if that’s where God is moving me. But if suddenly God seems to be moving me in a different direction, I let go of that idea, because it’s just an idea. If I keep calling it my dream, I’m holding on to it too tightly until it becomes something I can’t let go of. And the only thing I can’t let go of is God. Everything else should be held with an open hand. A Email: mbasham@worldmag.com
9/1/11 4:21 PM
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Notebook
LIFESTYLE TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE HOUSES OF GOD SPORTS MONEY RELIGION
Food fight >>
LIFESTYLE: South Carolina churches lose weight for charity
KRIEG BARRIE
BY SUSAN OLASKY
T C, S.C., are fighting it out in a friendly weight loss competition. The losing church promises to contribute pounds of non-perishable food to the winning church’s food pantry. Annie Wilson heads up the Wellness Center at Bible Way Church of Atlas Road. She said that an article making a connection between religious people and obesity spurred her church to invite Brookland Baptist Church of West Columbia to take up the challenge: “We can be healthy. We just need the right tools.” The churches decided to connect the competition to their food pantries because the long recession has increased the number of
Email: solasky@worldmag.com
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people needing food, and the supply at both pantries was running low. The connection provided an extra incentive for people to get involved. About people signed up and weighed in at the two churches. Bible Way divided its participants into seven teams and assigned team leaders to each. Every two weeks participants meet as teams to chart both the percentage of weight lost and the actual number of pounds lost. They also get together to exercise, using Zumba and aerobics. Participants hear talks from nutritionists, take field trips to the grocery store to learn how to read nutrition labels, and learn how to cook in a healthy way. The challenge ends on Oct. . The next day the two churches will celebrate. When asked what kind of tasty food would be at the celebration, Annie Wilson said, “We are not going to go back” to unhealthy ways of cooking. SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
WORLD
9/2/11 2:48 PM
Notebook > Lifestyle
Life for a ‘dying city’
Two sons of Grand Rapids draw cultural attention to their hometown By Stephen KLooSterman
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You can now buy over-the-counter or online DNA tests that show the sex of an unborn baby as early as seven weeks after conception. The tests, which cost $250 to $350, detect the baby’s DNA in the mother’s urine or blood. A recent study found the tests predicted whether the baby was a boy or girl with 95 percent accuracy. A New York Times article about the tests noted ethical dilemmas and quoted bioethicist Audrey R. Chapman asking, will women “look at their pregnancies increasingly as being conditional: ‘I will keep this pregnancy only if?’” The Times quoted obstetrician James Egan on the significance of seven weeks: “women haven’t had the ultrasound where you see the fetus that looks like a baby. Many people don’t even know that a woman is pregnant. And you can have a medical termination.” Arizona and Oklahoma recently passed laws banning sex selection abortions, and pro-life groups are pushing similar ones in other states. The Times noted that courts bound by Roe v. Wade might kill those laws, but pro-abortion groups may not be eager “to fight them politically or in court because sex selection is not the most socially sympathetic motivation for abortion.” Since the experience of China and India is that the babies most likely to be aborted are girls, as shown by the gender imbalances in India and China, it will be harder to argue that abortion is part of a pro-woman agenda. The Times gives Dr. Egan the last word: The tests raise “issues that I don’t think many general obstetricians are ready to deal with.” —S.O.
WORLD SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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8/31/11 8:57 PM
CREDIT
Problem child?
VIDEO: YOUTUBE • DEVOS: ADAM BIRD/AP • DNA: RICHARD B. LEVINE/PHOTOSHOT/NEwSCOM
A January 2011 Newsweek.com article called Grand Rapids, Mich., one of 10 “dying cities” in America. That could have been an obituary for the city some called “Bland Rapids.” Instead, two social entrepreneurs dedicated to their hometown, Rob Bliss and Rick DeVos, are making Grand Rapids the kind of place that young, hip professionals want to call home. In early 2010, Bliss, 22 and out of college, had settled down with a job in Grand Rapids as internet coordinator for a local TV station. But he was familiar with lip dub video, a web genre popular on college campuses where a stream of individuals are shot in one continuous take as they lip-sync a song. With collaborators Jeffrey Barrett and Scott Erickson and a total of about 5,000 participants, Bliss organized performers to lip-sync Don McLean’s 1971 song “American Pie” as they strode through downtown Grand Rapids past bouncing cheerleaders, sashaying swing dancers, and a football team running plays. The video (youtube.com/watch?v=ZPjjZCO67WI) drew more than 3 million views on YouTube. Film critic Roger Ebert called it “the greatest music video ever made.” Bliss has also coordinated in Grand Rapids the world’s largest pillow fight and built the world’s PROMOTING longest water slide. GRAND RAPIDS: “People here take Rob Bliss’ great ideas and run “American Pie” video (left) and with them,” he said. ArtPrize founder Rick DeVos, 29, Rick DeVos. had a similar experience when he began work on “ArtPrize” in 2009. The DeVos family—wealthy from the success of direct sales giant Amway—offered to artists prizes totaling $500,000 (including $250,000 for first place). Artists had the task of courting owners of potential venues—restaurant hallways, courtyards, parking lots—where their art could be exhibited. Over 19 days people viewed art and voted on their favorites on the ArtPrize website. Artists who received the most votes garnered the prizes. ArtPrize drew hundreds of artists, and this year more than 1,500 artists from 36 countries and 43 states planned to participate in the show, scheduled from Sept. 21 to Oct. 9. ArtPrize was a bonanza for restaurants—a few, surprised, ran out of food— and this year Grand Rapids expects more than 100,000 tourists to bring millions of dollars in revenue to the city. —Stephen Kloosterman is a Michigan journalist
Notebook > Technology
Apple turnover
A new leader takes over for Steve Jobs at the computer company that is a cultural force BY DANIEL JAMES DEVINE
>>
that -year-old Steve Jobs would step down as of Apple, Inc. came a question Apple geeks and investors alike are asking: Will the new head of Apple be able to spin out magical and lucrative products (iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad) like Jobs did? At Jobs’ recommendation, Apple has appointed former Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, , to be .. By many accounts, Cook already ran Apple (he’d acted as chief executive three times, including during Jobs’ most recent medical leave of absence, ongoing since January). Cook has worked under Jobs for years. While Jobs’ role had been to cast Apple’s vision and be company spokesman, Cook worked tenaciously behind the scenes to make Apple profitable, outsourcing manufacturing and building a clockwork-like supply chain for the company’s carefully controlled product rollouts.
COOK: CHRIS HONDROS/GETTY IMAGES • KINZE: PR NEWSWIRE/AP
VIDEO: YOUTUBE • DEVOS: ADAM BIRD/AP • DNA: RICHARD B. LEVINE/PHOTOSHOT/NEWSCOM
Auto farm
Email: ddevine@worldmag.com
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Cook has been described as demanding and unemotional. He earned million in , but is better known for his grueling schedule, bicycling, and energy bar consumption during meetings than for lavish living. He reportedly gives much money away—including to President Obama’s election campaign, although he was a registered Republican at one point. His political views should perhaps be irrelevant to Cook’s performance as , but in an age of ubiquitous media, the purveyors of technology—and their worldviews—can control content. Last year Apple banned pornographic applications from its iPhones and iPads—but also rejected an app for the “Manhattan Declaration,” a Christian document that defended traditional marriage. Observers say Cook is obsessed with detail, like Jobs, but in contrast to the mercurial yet attractive leadership style of his predecessor, Cook always appears calm and can seem personally aloof. Some analysts say Cook will be able to lean on other Apple executives to compensate for what he lacks in innovation skills. Others are skeptical. Cook himself reportedly said a few years ago, “Come on, replace Steve? No. He’s irreplaceable. ... I see Steve there with gray hair in his s, long after I’m retired.” Jobs’ final leadership test may be whether his selected prot égé really can fill those sneakers.
Kinze Manufacturing, a Williamsburg, Iowa-based maker of farm implements, has unveiled a tractor system that can plant a field by itself. In video posted at the company’s website, a driverless tractor plowed rows and made turns in a field with the help of , sensors, and a computer programmed to stop the tractor if it encountered a fence, pickup truck, or animal. Kinze representatives haven’t revealed a sale date or price. Farmers have been using guidance to reduce overlap and to work at night for years, but it has required a driver in the cab. If cost and safety hurdles are cleared for autonomous tractor systems, they could enable farmers to take advantage of good weather days by doing -hour planting—or to automatically run a grain cart alongside a combine during harvest. —D.J.D.
SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
WORLD
9/5/11 9:58 AM
Notebook > Science
RESEARCH ROUNDUP
Botched launches
Nuclear physics: Data from
By dANiel jAmes deviNe
UNCERTAIN RESERVE
the launch of a military satellite. Officials fired several officials, including the agency chief, over the failures. The occasional launch failure is inevitable, but a string of them? The Moscow Times reported that Russia’s space program is suffering from mismanagement and a lack of funding and expertise: “The system is still recovering from a 15-year slump after the Soviet collapse and lacks a cohesive revamp plan.” That would be of little concern to Americans if U.S. astronauts weren’t scheduled to ride aboard the usually reliable Soyuz rockets, currently the only launch vehicles certified to take humans to the iss. nasa plans to shell out over $50 million apiece for Soyuz seats in the coming months or years, until a private U.S. firm can build a space vehicle as safe—or safer—than Russia’s.
a u.s. geological survey (USGS) estimate of natural gas resources in the marcellus shale—a rock formation stretching from tennessee to new york—was released aug. 23 and threatened to dampen confidence in a 100-year gas supply. The USGS said the marcellus had about 84 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered gas, recoverable using hydraulic fracturing drilling technology. The amount, though large, was sharply less than the estimated 410 trillion cubic feet published in april by another federal arm, the energy information administration (EIA). early reports said the EIA would cut its estimate in deference to USGS, but part of the discrepancy is due to different measurement schemes: The april estimate included gas reserves already being mined, but the august estimate didn’t. That distinction didn’t close the entire gap in the two figures, though, prompting some to call for more transparent math. —D.J.D.
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Antibiotics: Martin Blaser, a New York researcher, hypothesizes that antibiotic use may be permanently eradicating some good bacteria species from our gut. He suggests the loss of these bacteria is connected to the rise in obesity, asthma, and other maladies (Nature).
Family: Children whose fathers are actively engaged in their lives tend to be more intelligent and have fewer emotional problems, such as anxiety, withdrawal, or sadness, according to a long-term study. Girls are especially affected by absentee dads (Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science). —D.J.D.
Russia satellite: stR/ap • laRge HadRon CollideR: FaBRiCe CoFFRini/aFp/getty images . BaCteRia: istoCk • Family: © kletia gaRRies pHotogRapHy
>>
russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, faced international embarrassment in August when it botched two rocket launches in one week. In the first, the agency lost contact with a $265 million satellite intended to provide TV, internet, and telecom signals to Russian citizens. The second failure involved a Soyuz rocket mission to the International Space Station (iss): The rocket’s unmanned Progress capsule, prepared to deliver 3 tons of supplies to the iss crew, disintegrated in the atmosphere over Siberia after a third stage engine shut down prematurely. They were only the latest in a series of mishaps costing an estimated $550 million. Last December Roscosmos lost three satellites built for the gLOnass navigation system, a Russian rival to the U.S.-made gps. In February it botched
WORLD SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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andeRs Blomqvist/lonely planet images/newsCom
Russia’s space slump gives Americans reason for concern
the Large Hadron Collider in Europe suggests the “Higgs boson,” a particle deemed necessary for the Big Bang, may not exist after all. If not, it calls into question the popular subatomic theory of “supersymmetry.”
CREDIT
AnDERs BlomqvIsT/lonEly PlAnET ImAgEs/nEwsCom
Notebook > Houses of God
Built as a Dutch Reformed church in 1753 when Malaysia was a Dutch colony, Christ Church in Malacca is now home to an Anglican congregation in the Muslim majority nation. It is the oldest Protestant church in Malaysia. SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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Notebook > Sports
Star fisher
A prodigy angler is learning to use his talent to catch more than fish BY MARK BERGIN
>>
J W . The -year-old angler has cashed , in tournaments this year, including the , prize for first-place in the Bass Fishing League All-American competition in Louisiana this past spring. He followed that up with a th-place finish in the prestigious Forest Wood Cup in Arkansas in August. Those successes at such a young age have sponsors salivating. Wheeler’s dream of joining the few elite fishermen who make a handsome living in the sport appears within reach. The prodigy first discovered a knack for hooking fish at age , ravaging the less-than-stellar fishing holes of the White River just a short bike ride from his childhood home in Indianapolis. Before long, he was spotting patterns, experimenting with various baits and lines, and jotting every advantageous tidbit in a daily journal. Wheeler’s homeschooling parents quickly harnessed his love of trawling to motivate broader learning. His mother Lynn built arithmetic problems with fish as main characters. She required he complete his schoolwork with scores of percent or better before returning to the river. Somehow, no matter how many assignments, the schoolwork always got done in a hurry. Jacob Wheeler is a fisher of fish. But the wisdom on the water has not always translated to solid ground. Last year, Wheeler took home , for a solid tournament showing and promptly blew the wad on a truck. That splurge left him short on funds to enter the next level of the regional competition. “It was a ton of money to me,” he
says now. “I got cocky and arrogant. I never really had given my fishing to God.” For Wheeler and his family, Christian faith has always mattered. But only in the wake of his financial blunder and attending disappointment did Wheeler first realize that faith matters in his fishing life, too— perhaps especially so. That incident has sobered the young angler. He now views his rising star on the fishing circuit with caution, even reservation. The travel, the money, the pressure—opportunities all to move one of two directions: toward self or toward God. “You have to walk with Him,” Wheeler says. “You have to pursue a relationship with Him.” In the tournament scene, that relationship means finding other Christians for friendship and makeshift church services. It means participating in competitions and with organizations that use fishing as a metaphor for true spirituality. Wheeler is learning: “It’s not the best fishing spot that teaches you the lessons. It’s the difficult times that teach you the most.” Jacob Wheeler is a fisher of fish and fast becoming a fisher of men. HOOKED ON FISHING: Wheeler holds part of his prize-winning catch.
—with reporting from Russ Pulliam in Indianapolis
Pac power?
DAVID A. BROWN/FLWOUTDOORS.COM
SUCCESSFUL I Utah has a record of - with eight bowl victories since . That kind of success will add vigor to the conference. I The willingness to change the name to Pac- is a positive—unlike the Big Ten, which features teams, or the Big that has teams. Ugh! NOT SUCCESSFUL I Colorado has a record of - with one bowl victory since . That kind of mediocrity will detract from conference competitiveness. I The previous format featured natural in-state rivalries and a final week of drama that was unparalleled nationwide. The additions of Colorado and Utah diminish that drama.
WORLD SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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Email: mbergin@worldmag.com
9/5/11 4:43 PM
EURO DEBT: ISTOCK • BERNANKE: ALEX BRANDON/AP
For years, the Pac- conference provided the most competitive environment for college football on the West Coast. This season, the conference has added Colorado and Utah, bringing a name change. Will the Pac- prove as successful as its predecessor? Here are a few reasons why it might or might not:
Notebook > Money
Shooting a Brazil, Russia, India, and China mostly sat out the Great Recession. Growth in the so-called countries continued while the United States and Europe strained under debt, housing crises, and bank meltdowns. But these countries have huge problems. Brazil and India now face inflation. China’s unwillingness to let its currency float on the world currency markets means that just about every aspect of its economy is artificial. It now has a housing bubble, its banks have massive bad debt problems, and it has an unsustainable trading volume with virtually every international trading partner, including the United States. The bottom line: Strong growth had masked these problems, but all four countries now forecast much slower growth through at least . So the countries may have survived the Great Recession, but they may become victims of a weak global recovery. —W.C.S.
Interesting times With interest rates low, BERNANKE decides to forgo other Fed action
BY WARREN COLE SMITH
CREDIT
EURO DEBT: ISTOCK • BERNANKE: ALEX BRANDON/AP
WHAT? ME WORRY? The crushing debt loads of Ireland, Greece, Spain, and Portugal have brought the EuroZone nations to the brink of economic meltdown, but don’t tell that to Europe’s largest corporations. Commodities trader Glencore posted strong earnings for the first half of . Drinks maker Diageo also announced upbeat figures. Credit Agricole, France’s largest retail bank, is thriving in part because scared Europeans are practicing some old-fashioned thrift: Savings rates are up in most of Europe since . The problem—if you want to call it that— is that these earnings are the result of increased productivity. France’s unemployment rate is nearly percent. Germany is at percent—good by the standards of its neighbors, but still well above full employment, and the rate seems to be stuck. Companies are reluctant to hire new workers until they know the economy is out of the woods, so it’s a cycle that is likely to continue for a while. —W.C.S.
>>
says: “May you live in interesting times.” But Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke may have had all the interesting times he can stand. That’s why his Aug. speech in Jackson Hole, Wyo., was calculated to be uninteresting. And it seemed to work. Bernanke said his long-term view was “more optimistic” and that “the growth fundamentals of the United States do not appear to have been permanently altered by the shocks of the past four years.” Bernanke did not rule out future action by the Fed, but he said he would take no action now. His inaction seemed to satisfy conservatives who think the Fed has already done too much. His explanation was a sign of confidence in the economy to heal itself. Bernanke’s speech came after four straight weeks of losses on Wall Street, and some of the most volatile days in market history. One week saw four out of five days with -point swings, unprecedented in the -year history of the Dow. The overall economy, meanwhile, is not out of the woods. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now predicts growth at an annual rate of just percent, down from an earlier forecast of . percent. A survey of leading economists says high unemployment and weak consumer spending will hold back the U.S. economy into . If they’re right, these conditions may make for boring economic news and calmer markets, but hot political news as we approach an election year. SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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WORLD
9/3/11 8:12 AM
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Follow us
9/5/11 8:56 AM
MAILBAG
give up such a beautiful time for the noise and hubbub of a mall? And “nurse-ins”? I know our times and culture have changed, but babies haven’t.
“Father of the Tea Party” (. )
.
I was impressed with the recent article on Ron Paul. He came in second in a straw poll at a recent political conference I attended, and I was shocked at the number of people, including Christians, who support him. He comes off to me as saying that we have no responsibility to defend the oppressed or reach out, with common sense, to the suffering around the world. , Sutherlin, Ore. While I commend you for not writing a smear piece, you have focused more on Paul’s unusual characteristics than on his principles. His positions derive from libertarianism. What Paul thinks is a good idea is a very different matter from what he thinks should be legal, and especially what should be decided by the federal government. The real question is not about what is good or moral but what the government must not allow to protect the rights of others.
I nursed my seven children for a total of over seven years in all kinds of public situations. Not once did someone offer a negative comment. However, not once did I unnecessarily expose my breasts to public view while nursing.
Houston, Texas
Breastfeeding can be a time for a young mother to share an intimate time with her baby. Why would mothers
St. Clairsville, Ohio
“Fetal attraction” (. )
While reading this article I substituted “pre-born baby” for “fetal” and was left with an Orwellian sense of terror of what our civilization has become. The picture of wrapped “donated tissue,” each package the size of a premature newborn, brought tears to my eyes. Thanks for pricking calloused areas of my heart. How dreadful that our babies are now considered to be worth more dead than alive!
Birmingham, Ala.
“Made for each other” (. ) Janie B. Cheaney’s column about internet matchmaking made some very good critiques, but the internet does provide an opportunity for people longing for marital intimacy to meet. My best friend and I were both in healthy churches but we had a deep loneliness in our hearts and a shortage of
Fargo, N.D.
Ron Paul is Washington’s most consistent advocate for limited, decentralized government. Your attack on Paul confirms that Christians who love liberty must look elsewhere for political reporting. Please cancel my subscription.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia / around the world
Cranberry Town ship, Pa.
“Nursing grievances” (. ) As a mother of seven children who were each breastfed over a year, I stand in awe of this perfect, God-designed way of nourishing a young life. Although the “flash” of a breast can seem indecent, mothers can learn to nurse their babies discreetly, modestly, and without giving offense. New Bloomfield, Pa.
Send photos and letters to: mailbag@worldmag.com
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SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
WORLD
8/31/11 8:46 PM
assertive men in our churches. We both met our husbands through eHarmony. It is not perfect but the main thing, as you wonderfully explained, is to remain true to the promises made on the altar, however you got there.
The slope is getting steeper and more slippery. Cape Coral, Fla.
Thank you for boldly telling the truth about the root cause of the persistent hunger in the horn of Africa: evil. Proverbs : says that by “lovingkindness and truth iniquity is atoned for.” If we don’t tell the truth about issues, we have no hope of solving them. The “experts” uncourageously skirt the truth of many important issues in our world today.
Norman, Okla.
Thanks for the column about the online marriage mills. I’ve always put them at the bottom of the options list for Christian singles. I guess gone are the days of Bible colleges and career groups as the prime spousal hunting grounds.
“Orebs and Zeebs” (. ) My compliments on the column regarding the fleeting and worthless nature of notoriety and secular power. Where are Oreb and Zeeb today? Anyone who begins to feel a heightened sense of his or her own selfimportance should watch the newspaper headlines and see how many celebrities wind up on the bottom of the birdcage.
Goshen, Ind.
“Multiple outcomes” (. )
Allen, Texas
“Famine fables” (. )
Palatine, Ill.
torturous itching. Singing of my Savior’s goodness delivered me from my pity party and kept my eyes focused upward.
Brentwood, Tenn.
“Furler’s fire” (. )
You’re right. As Francis Schaeffer pointed out, once you let the nose of the camel in the tent, soon the whole animal is in. Polygamy advocates have tried the “civil rights” tactic, now it’s “religious belief.”
I appreciated Arsenio Orteza’s review of Peter Furler’s On Fire. But where Orteza may have been turned off by Furler’s cheerful songs and sunny optimism, I gave him full credit for getting me through a week stuck at home with bad poison ivy and its
“Ready or not” (. ) Your article mentions seminars being held that “highlight how many unanswered questions remain—like what to do when a heterosexual soldier unwittingly gets assigned a homosexual roommate.” Does
There’s room on campus for religious freedom...
very little room.
Her application for a graduate nursing program included a requirement to participate in abortions.
See her story.
Facebook.com/SpeakUpU
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8/31/11 8:47 PM 8/26/11 11:13 AM
anyone really think there will be segregation when there isn’t any segregation even by gender today in the field? North Olmsted, Ohio
“Out of the locker” (. ) I’m glad that Michael Irvin found Christian faith, but now he needs to get a Bible and read it, a lot, and do it before making pronouncements about homosexuality. Columbia, Tenn.
“Growing up—and out” (. ) Congratulations and thanks for your new podcast, The World and Everything In It. It will be a great addition to my regular lineup. I also just subscribed to the iPad app; it is yet another innovative way to receive the valuable information offers. Niles, Mich.
Find out at RPTS. Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary www.rpts.edu 866-778-7338 info@rpts.edu
Take a fresh look for FREE
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1 11:13 AM
What would it be like to study under pastors?
Take a fresh look
Every word matters.
Every word of Scripture matters because every word is from God and for people. Because every word is from God, the HCSB uses words like Yahweh (Is. 42:8), Messiah (Luke 3:15), and slave (Rev. 1:1). And because every word of Scripture is for 21st century people, the HCSB replaces words like “Behold” with modern terms like “Look.” For these reasons and others, Christians across the globe are taking a fresh look at the HCSB.
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Every Word Matters HCSB.org
9/5/11 8:23 PM
“A visitor’s guide” (July 30) We regularly visit the son of one of our good friends at church currently incarcerated in a county jail. Our friend spends over 95 percent of his time looking at the ceiling, floor, or other inmates. For a few hours a week he gets to sit across the table from his daughters or his parents or his friends. If the guard looks the other way, we may even get to hold hands for a minute. If we are really blessed, we get to hold hands and pray before we leave. Those who think they couldn’t handle going to jail to visit someone should sacrifice a few hours to sit down with someone and just let them know you care. Larry Euton
Monroe, Ga.
“Can a Mormon be president?” (July 16)
I have lived around Mormons my whole life. They have been my teachers, my fellow students, and my co-workers. Their
doctrine is wrong but they stress morality and a strong family life. We should accept them as our allies in the political realm. This column has prompted me to cancel my subscription. Kathy tayLor
Peoria, Ariz.
Thank you for not side-stepping the issue of whether evangelicals are willing to support Mitt Romney for president. The essential issue with Romney is one of discernment and character, both his and the electorate’s. Can I trust a man who already advertises that he lacks discernment by believing a cult’s lies? Certainly not. Martha KaspEr
Alpharetta, Ga.
“Chatter in the outfield” (July 16) We thoroughly enjoyed the well-written, insightful essay by Andrée Seu. She challenges her readers to exercise themselves spiritually in practical ways we
had not considered, or needed to be reminded of. GEniE raGin
Cumming, Ga.
Corrections In a March congressional hearing, Rep. Peter Cravaack, R-Minn., challenged L.A. County Sheriff Leroy Baca to explain his cozy association with CAIR (“CAIR’s cops,” Aug. 27, p. 11). Westminster Larger Catechism question 178 defines prayer (“Thousands left behind,” Aug. 27, p. 76).
LETTERS AND PHOTOS Email: mailbag@worldmag.com Write: world Mailbag, P.O. Box 20002, Asheville, nc 28802-9998 Include full name and address. Letters may be edited to yield brevity and clarity.
Speakers:
Todd Beall, Craig Blaising, Ligon Duncan, Walter Kaiser, John Mark Reynolds, Bruce Waltke, John Walton and others Sponsored by the Hill Country Institute for Contemporary Christianity
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9/5/11 8:55 AM
Andrée Seu
THE NARROW DOOR
KRIEG BARRIE
I
Aim for more than a cheapened form of grace
’ , time to make that momentous decision on the basis of reports and hunches and frisson, while meandering through grassy quads pinned by Beaux-Art dreams in marble and ivy. My daughter accompanied a school mate and her mom, and told me the place was not for her—then added this postscript, that she saw the die cast on her friendship, as the other girl took to the school like she had found her true home. The polo thing that had been a fashion difference in high school turned out to be a world beckoning, dividing, rending them. And the scent of musty ancient religion, inconsequential in childhood play, now seemed a warm embrace into belonging for her already-fading friend. “I didn’t know N was a Catholic,” I said. “Everybody in the Northeast thinks of himself as a Catholic,” my daughter replied. When push comes to shove, when the boxes must be checked on the forms, there is a winnowing. Could be Catholic, could be Protestant, or Jewish, or Buddhist. They think they are found, they think they are safe. “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord’” (Jeremiah :-). The dim lit city our protagonist comes upon in The Great Divorce has sprawling streets of imaginary houses. The advantage is they’re cheap to build. So what’s the downside the newcomer wants to know. Well, the rains are coming, of course, the Intelligent Man flatly intones; they don’t keep out the rain. “What the devil is the use of building them, then?” the visitor exclaims. “‘Safety again,’ he muttered. ‘At least the feeling of safety.’” In his prison cell, Dietrich Bonhoeffer scrawls the history of the church and the demise of grace into cheap grace—those imaginary houses in a twilight town where it will be dark presently. Somewhere along the line, “As Christianity spread ... the world was Christianized, and grace became its common property. It was to be had at low cost. ... We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale, we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation unasked and without condition. ... We poured forth unending Email: aseu@worldmag.com
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streams of grace. But the call to follow Jesus in the narrow way was hardly ever heard.” His is a warning. To be European was to be Christian. To be a “Neasty” in Philadelphia is to be a Catholic. It is a Neasty state of mind. It is a trap. “It will be dark presently,” the native said in C.S. Lewis’ dim town. “‘You mean the evening is really going to turn into a night in the end?’ He nodded. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ said I. ‘Well ... no one wants to be out of doors when that happens.’” “And someone said to Him, ‘Lord, will those who are saved be few?’ And He said to them, ‘Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.’” (Luke :-). What is the narrow door and who are the many? That, more than the college question, is the question of your life. The narrow door is Christ, but that has been distorted to mean cheap grace, the notion that we’re safe because we are Europeans. We are Neasties. We are baptized. We know doctrine. We never miss a Sunday. In that Day, many will protest: “We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets” (Luke :). “You taught in our streets.” We thought salvation was by proximity. “We were right next to You, Lord. We brushed past You—I have the pictures, I have the T-shirt. I heard Your voice through my car window, I put a fiver in Your guitar case. I went to a Christian college, for crying out loud!” Hey college girls, strive for the narrow door. Let us not hear Him say, “I never knew you” (Matthew :). A SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
WORLD
9/5/11 10:00 AM
Marvin Olasky
PLAYING THE ENVY CARD
P
If “creating jobs” is Job No. , lay off the rhetoric
WORLD SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
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KRIEG BARRIE
B O’ shows that politically liberal Christians differ from politically conservative ones not only in policy proposals but in the understanding of human nature that leads to those proposals. Let’s think the best of our president. Let’s suggest that his frequent vilification of corporate presidents flying around on private jets—he attacked them six times in a June press conference—is more than a political appeal to class envy. Let’s say he thinks private jet tax breaks are unfair because he is philosophically committed to equality. Since President Obama has emphasized that “creating jobs” is Job No. for him, let’s think the best of him and assume he believes that taking away special treatment for corporate presidents will help the unemployed get back to work. If those assumptions are correct, we should treat the White House occupant not with paranoia but with pity. He’s showing a lack of both business experience and biblical understanding. He and other liberals are showing that they don’t understand original sin. People without business experience might think entrepreneurship is easy. President Obama should at least scan “I, Pencil: My Family Tree,” an essay written by Leonard Read in . Read explains what it takes to make even a simple writing tool: Its components include cedar, lacquer, graphite, ferrule, pumice, wax, and glue—and huge numbers of people must be at work before the final product emerges. The reality of social entropy is that enterprise doesn’t just happen, since without consistent effort, things fall apart. Time is money: If “creating jobs” is really Job No. for President Obama, he should want business leaders to have as much time as possible to make more money, because they’ll do that by expanding production, and that normally means employing more people. Job-creating business leaders are public servants, and if a corporate jet saves them time, not only the company but the United States will benefit. I should also point out that thoughtful Christians in business work long hours primarily because they know God wants them to use the talents He
gave them to create an environment in which employees can use their talents. You may think this talk of public-servant executives and altruistic Christians is all kerfuffle. You may think corporate jets are just perks for fat cats. If you are thinking that, and if you’re right, I have two words for you: So what? Here is where original sin comes in. If men were angels, remuneration wouldn’t matter as long as an executive’s family simply had a roof over its head and enough to eat. But the impact of original sin is that money talks. Dollars, and maybe private planes, keep executives at the plow when they’d rather be golfing. It’s a small price to pay for those who build businesses that create jobs. Why are we in a renewed recession? Liberals seem surprised when they reduce incentives and see reduced entrepreneurship. Those who study the Bible aren’t surprised: Might as well face it, we are naturally selfish. Economist Adam Smith knew from the Bible and his own observation that we should not rely on the public-spiritedness of bakers to give us fresh bread every day: They will supply our needs only if we pay them. Liberals who don’t acknowledge this are patsies for socialist appeals that claim tax increases won’t affect productivity. But listen to this internet wail from one executive: “I already had to lay off percent of my workforce when they passed Obamacare. My accountant could not solve the problem any other way. A tax hike only means laying off more people.” Hmm. Liberals might say this businessman should joyfully accept a reduced income, and so should other highly compensated people. Maybe they should—but most won’t. Instead of demonizing potential heroes of industry, Washington should get out of the way and let more people get rich while making some others not so poor. Do corporations receive a special tax break for private planes? Who cares? Unemployed Americans need jobs, and President Obama isn’t going to produce them by giving speeches—but he can discourage those who can otherwise create jobs. Are many executives selfish? So what? Let’s drop the rhetoric and focus on jobs. Employment trumps envy. A Email: molasky@worldmag.com
9/5/11 8:52 AM
Go where you always go when life gets rough. Turn to the timeless principles in God’s Word. Then, check out Medi-Share. Medi-Share isn’t insurance. It doesn’t make you choose between unaffordable premiums or being left alone to pay your medical bills. It’s a community of 36,000 Christians who follow the biblical model
of sharing and paying each other’s medical expenses—much like the early church did 2000 years ago. In fact, Medi-Share members have shared more than $550,000,000 in medical bills since 1993. And because we promote and support healthy biblical lifestyles, member costs are affordable. If high premiums are pricing you out of insurance and you don’t want to be left alone to pay your own medical expenses, call today or visit www.medi-share.org. And discover the peace of mind that comes through the caring Body of Christ.
Join Medi-Share 2.0 — the next generation of Christian healthcare sharing! Call 1-800- PSALM -23 (800-772-5623) or visit WWW.MEDI-SHARE.ORG .
krieg barrie
• 36,000 Christians who want to pay your medical bills • Health consulting and education • Prayer support of fellow members Medi-Share is not health insurance. Medi-Share is not available in Montana.
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Health care
for people of faith
If you are a committed Christian, you do not have to violate your faith by purchasing health insurance from a company that pays for abortions and other unbiblical medical practices. You can live consistently with your beliefs by sharing medical needs directly with fellow believers through Samaritan Ministries’ non-insurance approach. This approach even satisfies the individual mandate in the recent Federal health care law (Sec. 1501 (b) of HR 3590 at pg. 327, 328). Every month the more than 18,000* households of Samaritan Ministries share more than $4 million* in medical needs directly—one household to another. They also pray for one another and send notes of encouragement. The monthly share for a family of any size has never exceeded $320*, and is even less for singles, couples, and single-parent families. Also, there are reduced share amounts for members aged 25 and under, and 65 and over.
For more information call us toll-free at 1-888-268-4377, or visit us online at: www.samaritanministries.org. Follow us on Twitter (@samaritanmin) and Facebook (SamaritanMinistries). * As of August 2011
Biblical faith applied to health care www.samaritanministries.org
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9/5/11 8:50 AM