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PADINA wanted to commit suicide on live TV. She would publicly discredit the Christian preacher and the God he followed. In her death, she hoped to please the Allah she never seemed able to connect with in life. ÂŽ
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Sea of Galilee
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NEW from JANET PARSHALL, host of the nationally syndicated radio program In the Market with Janet Parshall
FINDING
OF
IN THE
TRUTH MARKETPLACE IDEAS encouraging modern day saints as they enter the “marketplace” by helping them discover the richness
of God’s Word and the poverty of the world’s message
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Contents , / ,
40 Into the last laps
Inside the GOP’s final push for the White House: As Republicans try to fire up the grassroots, many of those activists find more motivation in opposing a failed president than in supporting the Republican nominee
48 Heading for a cliff
58 Beyond the flow charts
Unless the House and the Senate can iron out their differences by the end of the year, a series of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts could bring the economy into recession
52 Chinese multiplication
The legacy of Freddie Sun () is Bible schools that train leaders that grow house churches that reach across the country
A ground-level look at charity clinics throughout the United States finds a thriving, but often ignored, subsection of American healthcare
62 Networks of care Formal and informal groups of healthcare providers are keeping the poor from missing the safety net
70 Calling the shots
Independent Christian clinics may soon have to decide whether to accept government funding. Is the price of federal money too high?
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Movies & TV Books Q&A Music
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Lifestyle Technology Science Houses of God Sports Money Religion
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Joel Belz Janie B. Cheaney Mindy Belz James Payne Mailbag Andrée Seu Peterson Marvin Olasky
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“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein.” —Psalm 24:1 EDITORIAL editor in chief Marvin Olasky editor Mindy Belz managing editor Timothy Lamer news editor Jamie Dean senior writers Janie B. Cheaney, Susan Olasky, Andrée Seu Peterson, John Piper, Edward E. Plowman, Cal Thomas, Gene Edward Veith, Lynn Vincent reporters Emily Belz, Daniel James Devine, Angela Lu, Edward Lee Pitts correspondents Megan Basham, Mark Bergin, Anthony Bradley, Alicia M. Cohn, John Dawson, J.C. Derrick, Amy Henry, Meghan Keane, Thomas S. Kidd, Michael Leaser, Jill Nelson, Arsenio Orteza, Tiffany Owens, Stephanie Perrault, Emily Whitten mailbag editor Les Sillars executive assistant June McGraw editorial assistants Kristin Chapman, Katrina Gettman
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Joel Belz
Wastebaskets in heaven? A practical application of the Lord’s Prayer
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WORLD
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I’m not suggesting for a moment that folks on one side of the line are more spiritual, more holy, or more blessed than those on the other. All of us, to be sure, find ourselves at different times on either side of the divide. But as author Randy Alcorn suggests in his must-read book Heaven (), few Christians take seriously enough the continuity that God has established between the Creation we currently inhabit and the New Creation He has planned for us in eternity. Which takes me back to the wastebaskets and garbage cans. Let me assert, without biblical proof but just for the sake of argument, that we will indeed have such items in eternity. Where else will you discard your peelings when you prepare that perfectly heavenly apple pie? Where will you toss the first draft of an essay or poem you write after you’re suddenly struck with an improvement that makes it ever so much better? There wasn’t anything intrinsically sinful about a waste can in Eden, and to the extent Heaven will stimulate all our creative juices, we’ll need waste cans there as well. All this very much affects how you approach your day’s work in the here and now. As Alcorn stresses in his book, most of us have too dull, boring, and unexciting a view of heaven. When that’s the case, we end up as well with too dull, boring, and unexciting a sense of our job description in our present circumstance. But nothing—not even taking out the garbage—is mundane. Everything we do should be a new expression of God’s greatness, a clear expression of His healing redemption, or some combination of both. Finding the motivation to live that way is part of what we’re after when we pray: “Your will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven.” A
KRIEG BARRIE
W and garbage cans in heaven? The question is not as frivolous as it sounds. It’s rooted in the question about how much of our activity in the here and now might have been eliminated if Adam and Eve had successfully resisted the fall into sin that spoiled everything. We’re all pretty much agreed, I suppose, that oncologists and divorce lawyers will be unemployed once God’s people enter their heavenly state. So will funeral directors, and the manufacturers of Roundup, flea collars, and aspirin. But a number of vocational callings are not so easily categorized. What are we to say about the architects of beautiful homes and public spaces? Or automotive and aeronautical engineers who will speed us along new interplanetary routes? Or chefs who invite us to celestial banquets with unimaginable menus with no threat to our waistlines? Will all such folks, when they get to heaven, simply crank things up a notch and get on with their God-glorifying work with new gusto? Or will they have to learn a whole new way of doing things? And how is our behavior now supposed to be different because of those understandings? When we Christians talk about “claiming the culture for Christ,” we might well divide our task into two parts. On the one hand, we’ve got positive assignments of the sort Adam and Eve had on their first job descriptions—things like tending the garden, composing music, and delighting in fellowship with each other and with their Maker. On the other hand, we’ve got tasks focused primarily on reclamation, repair, and redemption—working to undo or counter the effects of the Fall. It’s a fascinating exercise—and a worthwhile one as well—to take a list of a couple dozen people you know pretty well (like all the officers of your church!) and categorize their callings and vocations. Which of them belong in the first group, primarily busy with assignments they might well have had in the original pre-Fall creation? And which of them, on the other hand, spend most of their time in a healing mode, working hard to undo and set straight the effects of the Fall?
Email: jbelz@worldmag.com
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9/3/12 11:50 AM
Dispatches News > Human Race > Quotables > Quick Takes
One-way dialogue
Will the NAE try to sell evangelicals on evolution? robert dale/illustration source
>>
A Pew Forum poll released in 2008 showed that three out of four evangelicals do not believe “evolution is the best explanation for the origins of human life on earth.” That skepticism is anathema to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and one of its major funders, the John Templeton Foundation. Templeton
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by marvin olasky
has been hostile not only to creationism but to the big tent of Intelligent Design. The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) has played an important role over the years in defending the liberty of evangelicals to stand up against political correctness and its religious offshoots. In recent years groups like the Institute on Religion & Democracy have S e p t e m b e r 2 2 , 2 0 1 2 W O R L D
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Energy Agency opens its five-day meetings on Sept. , nonproliferation experts are likely to turn their attention toward North Korea, India, Pakistan, and United States. Each of the four nations appears ready to test long-range missiles that could be used to deliver nuclear payloads. While the IAEA has long worried about North Korea, testing by rivals Pakistan and India could dominate the discussion.
LOOKING AHEAD Honors for Aung San Suu Kyi Burmese
democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi visits Washington, D.C., on Sept. to receive the nation’s top honor for a foreign civilian, the Congressional Gold Medal, for her work fighting for democracy in Burma, also known as Myanmar. Two days later, Suu Kyi will be in New York to receive the Atlantic Council’s Golden Citizen award.
Ig Nobel Prizes
Ironyloving scientists will be on hand at Harvard University Sept. for the presentation of the Ig Nobel Prizes for Improbable Research. The parody of the Nobel Prizes celebrates scientists for trivial and esoteric contributions to science, the arts, economics and other academic disciplines. In , the Chemistry Prize went to a researcher who developed and studied the effectiveness of a wasabi-based fire alarm.
Belarusian elections
Voters in Belarus head to the polls Sept. in parliamentary elections many predict will be plagued by fraud and that some fear could become violent. Election watchers say President Alexander Lukashenko, who has held power in the nation of million since , again is cracking down on opposition parties.
GPS rival launch
The days of primacy for the U.S. Global Positioning System are growing shorter. The European Space Agency is planning to launch on Sept. two more navigation satellites into orbit as part of its Galileo system, to compete with the U.S. military-controlled GPS. The Galileo system is scheduled to come online in , but not be fully capable until .
MISSILES: AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • AUNG SAN SUU KYI: OSIE HALLAM/GETTY IMAGES • IG NOBEL: STAN HONDA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • LUKASHENKO: SERGEI GRITS/AP • GALILEO: JODY AMIET/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
criticized the NAE for partnering with the politically correct instead of representing evangelicals. WORLD exposed in our July issue the NAE’s million partnership with a leading proponent of contraception for the unmarried. After receiving substantial criticism, the NAE announced it would not continue that partnership (see “Cashed out,” Aug. )—but another one appears to be coming. The NAE, according to a report to its board by chief operating officer Heather H. Gonzalez, is “in the final stages of formalizing an agreement to collaborate with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (and their Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion) on a project to build better dialogue and understanding between the scientific and evangelical communities. The collaboration is part of a Templeton Foundation grant received by the AAAS.” Gonzalez turned down my request for more information. Dialogue, sure: But let’s make it a real dialogue, with proponents of Intelligent Design not frozen out. Better understanding, of course: But let’s focus on God and not make Charles Darwin a god. “Collaboration”? Not if the goal is to sell evolution to the three-fourths of evangelicals who still keep faith with the Bible’s teaching that God made Adam from the dust of the earth. Is this overly critical of what could be a good thing? Not if we take into account the AAAS “Statement on the Teaching of Evolution,” which sees critiques of evolution as “attacks on the integrity of science.” Not if we take into account Templeton’s “Science for Ministry” funding of “programs that will help ministers and the congregations they serve to move away from ... simplistic solutions and polarizing stereotypes.” Templeton did not specify the simplistic and polarizing views: Seeing chapter of Genesis as real history rather than fable? Seeing man as fallen and in need of redemption? But the clear goal of AAAS and Templeton is to bolster the “motivation, imagination, and capacity” of pastors who want to influence their congregations to accept evolution. Is a collaborating NAE once again trying to sway evangelicals rather than represent them? A
Missile drama When the General Conference of the International Atomic
SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
9/4/12 12:34 PM
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Dispatches > News
A radical Democratic platform
With the Democratic National Convention underway in Charlotte, party faithful were set to approve on Sept. 4 a platform that might make Clinton-era Democrats blush. The platform does away with “safe, legal, and rare” abortion language, endorsing instead “a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay.” Analysts note that puts the party in favor of public funding for partial-birth abortions. The platform also for the first time endorses gay marriage,
and opposes constitutional amendments seeking to define marriage as between one man and one woman. It states: “We support the full repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act.” Absent from the 2012 platform is a section from the party’s 2008 platform acknowledging Jerusalem “is and will remain the capital of Israel” and pledging the Obama administration “to isolate Hamas until it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and abides by past agreements.” For continuing coverage of Election 2012, go to worldmag.com
Tense over Tehran In unblinking defiance of Western sanctions, Iran rallied support for its nuclear energy program from over 100 “nonaligned” nations meeting in Tehran last month. The same week, the UN International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran had doubled the number of uranium enrichment centrifuges—from 1,064 to 2,140—at its underground Fordow facility over the summer, and appeared to be covering up evidence of possible weapons tests. Iran has long claimed its nuclear efforts are peaceful, intended to support power plants, but the United States, Israel, and their allies suspect the Islamic regime is attempting to build a nuclear bomb. Iran refuses to cooperate with UN attempts to inspect its nuclear facilities. At the Tehran summit, a group of 120 mainly non-Western nations jointly declared approval of Iran’s enrichment capabilities. haiti: THONY BELIZAIRE/AFP/GettyImages • new orleans: Gerald Herbert/ap • moon: EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images CREDIT
man knows not his time Haiti
Louisiana
After the storm Hurricane Isaac barreled into New Orleans in August and flooded homes, pouring up to 16 inches of rain, and killing five in Louisiana and two in Mississippi. After leaving hundreds of people stranded and awaiting rescue by boats and helicopters, Isaac weakened and blew northeast, offering long-awaited rain to drought-stricken states like Missouri and Indiana. Thanks in part to $14 billion in flood control improvements, Isaac did far less damage than Hurricane Katrina, which hit in 2005 and killed 1,800. Still, some Louisiana residents were losing a home to flooding for the second time in seven years. Relief groups like The Salvation Army and Convoy of Hope provided water and thousands of meals to those affected. Media focus on New Orleans tended to divert attention from Haiti, though, where more than 350,000 Haitians still live in camps erected after the 2010 earthquake. Isaac’s tropical-storm-strength winds shredded scores of tents and makeshift shelters belonging to impoverished Haitians, and afterward, some tried to repair them with tape and rocks. In one Port-au-Prince neighborhood, residents used buckets and brooms to clear their homes of floodwater mud. At least 19 Haitians died during the storm.
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Sun Myung Moon, 92, founder of the Unification Church, died Sept. 3 in a church-owned hospital near Seoul, South Korea. Since its start in 1954, his Unification Church has drawn controversy along with followers: 3 million adherents worldwide, though ex-members and critics say the number is about 100,000. Moon was born in 1920 in North Phyongan Province; the area in what is now North Korea was known as a center for Korea’s Christians. At 16, he claimed, Jesus Christ appeared to him and told him to finish the work He began 2,000 years earlier. For Moon, that work included extensive business holdings in South Korea and the United States, including launching The Washington Times.
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9/4/12 12:39 PM
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Dispatches > News
Modest footprint
GETTING OUT THE VOTE
Neil Armstrong: -
>>
BRAZILIAN TANGLE
A maverick public notary in Tupã, Brazil, approved the country’s first three-way civil union, but may get a slap on the wrist. In formally registering a “stable union” between a man and two women, Claudia do Nascimento Domingues claimed she hadn’t broken any laws, but family lawyers call the union illegal,
WORLD
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though the nation has no laws addressing polygamous relationships. One Catholic group said, “The institution of family cannot be defended” as long as officials distort its definition. Brazil’s slippery slope should look familiar: Judges in the largely Roman Catholic and evangelical country approved gay civil unions and gay marriages just last year.
ARMSTRONG: JOSE JORDAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • WEDDING: ISTOCK CREDIT
O J , , Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong flew the lunar module Eagle over the surface of the moon, searching for a safe, flat place to land. Inside the Eagle, alarms sounded: The module had seconds of fuel left, with feet to go before “A RELUCTANT AMERICAN HERO”: Armstrong. touchdown. Co-pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. was getting nervous. When they finally landed, the Eagle had just seconds of fuel to spare. Armstrong, who died Aug. at the age of , was familiar with danger. As a fighter pilot in the Korean War, he ejected from a damaged plane. Later he worked as a test pilot for what became NASA, flying the experimental X- jet at , miles per hour. As commander of Gemini in , he co-piloted the first successful space docking, and brought his spacecraft safely home after it began to roll uncontrollably. A few hours after landing on the moon, Armstrong became the first human to step on its surface—and with immortal words: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” A camera mounted on the Eagle broadcast Armstrong’s small step to an estimated million viewers around the world. The landing marked American victory in a space race with the Soviet Union, and when Armstrong, Aldrin, and fellow astronaut Michael Collins returned to Earth, they were U.S. heroes. Armstrong shunned the limelight, though, eventually returning to his home state of Ohio to serve as a University of Cincinnati professor and to farm corn and cattle. Colleagues admired his modesty. His first wife, Janet Shearon, said Armstrong felt guilty about getting “all the acclaim for an effort of tens of thousands of people.” After his death last month of complications from heart procedures, Armstrong’s family issued a statement calling him “a reluctant American hero who always believed he was just doing his job.” Thomas L. Friedman, in his book From Beirut to Jerusalem, related a story about the astronaut’s tour of Jerusalem’s Old City: Upon learning he was standing where Jesus walked, Armstrong— who once called himself a deist—reportedly said, “I have to tell you … I am more excited stepping on these stones than I was stepping on the moon.”
A three-judge federal panel unanimously threw out a Texas voter ID law August that would have required voters this November to show a photo ID such as a driver’s license or passport. The court said the law was “the most stringent in the nation,” since it would have forced some impoverished Texans to travel over miles on a workday and pay to obtain an ID at a license branch. The Obama administration argued the law violated the Voting Rights Act by disenfranchising minorities. Texas officials disagreed and said the Act unfairly targets their state, and promised to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. In the high court upheld a similar voter ID law in Indiana. In Wisconsin, courts are blocking a photo ID requirement governor Scott Walker signed last year, and South Carolina is challenging a Justice Department annulment of its own photo ID law.
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Dispatches > News
Cleared The University of Texas at Austin found no evidence of scientific misconduct by Mark Regnerus, an associate professor of sociology whose study on the effects of homosexual parenting created controversy when published in June (see “Good deeds punished,” Aug. 25). The Regnerus study found that children of homosexual parents fared significantly less well than children of married heterosexual parents. Homosexual activists challenged the study, calling for the inquiry, but the university says it finds no evidence of falsification of data or other unethical practices. As part of the investigation, the university examined Regnerus’ computers, email, and grant applications. The university’s report states: “None of the allegations of scientific misconduct … were substantiated either by physical data, written materials, or by information provided during the interviews.”
Vote now for the 2012 winner of the Hope Award for Effective Compassion. The five finalists, including our first international selection, have been named. Visit worldmag.com, watch videos, and read about programs that help people find jobs, inner-city kids get a Christian education, boys without dads learn how to be men, and immigrants become part of America. Each of the five finalists will receive $4,000, with the ministry that receives the most votes winning a total of $25,000.
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Charlotte’s Pat McCrory turned the city around long before Democrats got there By Tiffany Jothan
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The Democratic National Convention called Charlotte home this September, but a Republican now running for governor of North Carolina led the city’s revival. When Pat McCrory moved to Charlotte in 1978, most locals deserted uptown after 5 p.m. It was boring and unsafe. But a third of a century later, the city is alive. McCrory left his job as mayor in 2009 after serving a record 14 years. During that time he embraced “the new urbanism” and its doctrines of walkable communities with housing, shops, schools, offices, and accessible transportation to promote healthy living while saving money and energy. McCrory points with pride to the EpiCentre, a new hub for dining, shopping, movies, healthcare, and banking: It replaced the old Charlotte Convention Center when the city changed regulations, allowing investors to build with no public funding. We talked as he stood in front of Vida Mexican Kitchen y Cantina, with light rail tracks and a new arena behind him, and with the Ritz-Carlton on his left and the chic Enso Asian Bistro below. McCrory’s first step toward revitalization was safety. Charlotte strengthened security and chopped tree branches to let light in. McCrory pushed for on-street parking—“People don’t want to go to an empty place”—and zoning changes to allow residential space above retail. He recruited new businesses and upscale restaurants for the Center City area: “I wanted a small-town quality of life, but I wanted big-city opportunity.” McCrory took the non-Republican step of pushing for higher taxes to pay for light rail, and voters approved a half-cent sales tax. He disagrees with conservatives who say don’t waste money on transit, and liberals who want service in the name of fairness to all areas of the city, whether the economics justify expansion or not. He lost a race for governor in 2008 but is a heavy favorite to win this time. —Tiffany Jothen is a Charlotte journalist
McCrory: Sam Cranston/Genesis • Regnerus: handout CREDIT
Hope Awards
Non-Republican Republican
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9/4/12 2:55 PM
WHITE UNTO HARVEST – A GREAT COMMISSION MEGA-CONFERENCE
Come hear over 40 pastors and evangelists from around the globe. Drink in the Word of God on evangelism and the Gospel. Bring and train your whole family. You will receive practical applications for church and family life for the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Draw from the rich well of biblical preaching on subjects including personal evangelism, missions, street preaching, families evangelizing together, and much more.
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Kevin Swanson
OCT 25-27
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Dispatches > Human Race Hospital in the lawsuit, alleging that medical staff failed to discover right away the abortion-inflicted uterine perforation, which caused Reaves to hemorrhage to death.
DIED Tony Nicklinson, the paralyzed British man who had sought to overturn the nation’s assisted suicide ban, died of pneumonia Aug. at the age of . His death came just a week after Britain’s High Court upheld the assisted suicide ban, saying changes to the law were a matter for Parliament to decide.
KILLED A NATO airstrike in Afghanistan on Aug. killed a senior commander of the Pakistani Taliban. Officials said the target, Mullah Dadullah, was reportedly involved with shuttling weapons and militants across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. THREATENED Pakistani police detained a Christian girl last month after a mob beat her Aug. and accused her of violating blasphemy laws by burning a children’s book used to teach the Quran. The villagers attacked Rimsha Masih, who is and reportedly has Down syndrome, and then called on authorities to execute her. Fearing reprisals, other Christians in the community
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have fled while plans are underway to relocate Masih and her family when she is released from prison. The World Council of Churches says it will meet in Geneva Sept. - to take up her plight.
SUED Dorsey Johns filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Planned Parenthood of Illinois after a botched abortion claimed the life of her daughter Tonya Reaves, . The lawsuit, which seeks , and compensation for Reaves’ toddler son, alleges that Planned Parenthood “carelessly performed” the secondtrimester abortion on July and failed to properly monitor Reaves afterward. Johns also names Northwestern Memorial
RELEASED A humanitarian worker returned home to his pregnant wife Nancy in Springfield, Ore., last month after Sudanese authorities released him from prison, where they had beaten and tortured him on terrorism charges. At the time of his arrest Rudwan Dawod, Dawod , a Muslim and native Darfurian, was helping rebuild a South Sudan Catholic church damaged during recent church burnings. Dawod works with the Washington-based NGO Sudan Sunrise, the charity started by late NBA star Manute Bol, whom Dawod knew personally (“Heart enough to look back,” July , ). CELEBRATED Besse Cooper, deemed the world’s oldest person by Guinness World Records, celebrated her th birthday Aug. . The Georgia woman is one of only eight people confirmed to have reached the age of in modern times. Her secret to longevity? “I mind my own business. And I don’t eat junk food.”
CARR: CAPITOL BROADCASTING COMPANY • NICKLINSON: MATT CARDY/GETTY IMAGES • DADULLAH: EPA/MEER AFZAL/LANDOV • DAWOD: HANDOUT • COOPER: DAVID GOLDMAN/AP CREDIT
DIED Retired pastor James (Jim) Carr, , died Aug. after an unidentified assailant shot him while breaking into Carr’s Greenville, N.C., home. Carr, who had ties with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, was also a volunteer for God’s Love ministry in Winterville, N.C.
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Dispatches > Quotables
‘It is very rare that I come to an event where I’m like the fifth or sixth most interesting person.’
‘We are federal law enforcement officers who are being ordered to break the law.’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent CHRIS CRANE, president of the union for ICE employees, on the effect of the Obama administration’s program, enacted without congressional approval, to allow up to . million illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children to remain legally in the country for two years. Crane and nine other ICE agents are suing the administration, claiming the program violates the Constitution. “This directive,” Crane said, “puts ICE agents and officers in a horrible position.”
President BARACK OBAMA, at an August fundraising event in New York that included several former NBA stars such as Michael Jordan and Bill Bradley.
‘I would never go on Wheel and start proselytizing. ... That is not why they are paying me.’ Wheel of Fortune host PAT SAJAK, on not mentioning his conservative political views on the show.
‘Hope and change has become divide and conquer.’ U.S. Sen. MARCO RUBIO, R-Fla., in his speech to the Republican National Convention, accusing President Obama of pitting Americans against each other. “He tells Americans they’re worse off because others are better off,” Rubio said. “That people got rich by making others poor.”
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OBAMA: BROOKS KRAFT/CORBIS/AP • ICE: GREGORY BULL/AP • BRISBANE: HANDOUT • SAJAK: PETER KRAMER/AP CREDIT
Departing “public editor”—reader representative—of The New York Times ARTHUR S. BRISBANE, on the unacknowledged liberal worldview at the Times. “So many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism—for lack of a better term—that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of the Times.”
SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
9/4/12 4:55 PM
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‘The hive on Eighth Avenue is powerfully shaped by a culture of like minds—a phenomenon, I believe, that is more easily recognized from without than from within.’
CREDIT
OBAMA: BROOKS KRAFT/CORBIS/AP • ICE: GREGORY BULL/AP • BRISBANE: HANDOUT • SAJAK: PETER KRAMER/AP CREDIT
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Dispatches > Quick Takes
Joseph Watson’s cows may be bound for the slaughterhouse, but until then, they’re living the sweet life. That’s because in the absence of reasonably priced corn feed, the Kentucky rancher has adopted candy as his animals’ primary staple. Watson obtained low-grade chocolates rated as defective, but he says the sweets are viable as cattle feed: “It actually has a higher ratio of fat [than] actually feeding them straight corn,” he told WPSD. And with corn prices as high as an elephant’s eye, rejected candy is more cost effective also. Besides, the stomach of a ruminant seems like a more ecological destination than a landfill.
A Grand Island, Neb., school district has reportedly told parents of a deaf -year-old boy that he can no longer use sign language at school to say his name. The reason: The hand gesture violates the school’s weapons policy. The school policy prohibits children from bringing to campus “any instrument … that looks like a weapon.” Parents of deaf preschooler Hunter Spanjer said school officials objected when the sign language he used to make his name made his hands look like pistols. Hunter crosses his index and middle fingers and wags his hands to make the sign for his name, in accord with the sign language system Signing Exact English. A school spokesman responded by saying the sign was “not an appropriate thing to do in school.”
Tens of thousands of people in Bunol, Spain, were seeing red on Aug. . And they wouldn’t have had it any other way. An estimated , people threw tons of tomatoes at each other in the annual “Tomatina” battle, as the streets of Bunol became soaked in red paste. The traditional hour-long tomato toss, which now includes many tourists, reportedly got its start in a food fight among children.
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SIMPSONS STAMP: TAMMIE ARROYO/AP • SPANJER: HANDOUT • COW: SIMON ALVINGE/PHOTO.COM • TOMATINA: JASPER JUINEN/GETTY IMAGES
One reason among many the United States Postal Service has a hard time breaking even: It overrates its customers’ love for The Simpsons, the long-running Fox cartoon. According to a recent Bloomberg report, the USPS still has more than million commemorative stamps featuring characters from The Simpsons. The postal agency spent . million in printing costs for the -cent Simpsons stamps, but, while they were available for sale in post offices in and , sold only a third of the billion printed. A report by the inspector general notes that the USPS should scale down the first-run production of commemorative stamps and instead rely on second printings of high-demand products.
SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
9/3/12 2:49 PM
1968 FORD: HANDOUT • BAUCOM: WAFB • ANNE FREE, PIG: ROSS MARSDEN/THE MERCURY • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • COBRA: ISTOCK
’ Take away two of the zeros and it would still cause sticker shock. Setting a new world record for most expensive U.S. car sale, auctioneers in California gaveled away a Ford GT race car for million. The powder-blue racer comes from an impressive product line. In the s, Ford GTs won the Hours of Le Mans endurance race four times, ending Ferrari domination of the event. And the particular car sold by RM Auctions was used by Steve McQueen as a camera car in the movie Le Mans.
SIMPSONS STAMP: TAMMIE ARROYO/AP • SPANJER: HANDOUT • COW: SIMON ALVINGE/PHOTO.COM • TOMATINA: JASPER JUINEN/GETTY IMAGES
1968 FORD: HANDOUT • BAUCOM: WAFB • ANNE FREE, PIG: ROSS MARSDEN/THE MERCURY • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • COBRA: ISTOCK
Motorists stuck in a morning traffic jam in Baton Rouge, La., on Aug. may have seen something odd on Interstate : an adult riding a little girl’s bike with a police escort. Surgeon Catherine Baucom was attempting to make her way to a local hospital for emergency surgery when she got stuck in the traffic jam. Thinking quickly, Baucom diverted her car, drove to a nearby friend’s house and asked to borrow a bicycle. All her friend had was his -year-old daughter’s one-speed. “It was hot pink and small,” Baucom told WMOX. “The helmet was pink with princesses.” But, it was enough. Baucom peddled back to I-, picked up a police escort at a checkpoint, and lane split her way through the traffic jam to make it to the hospital in time to prepare for surgery.
If the price tag isn’t enough to sell Australian Anne Free’s bar, she’d like to sweeten the deal—with a pig. Free says she’ll throw in ownership of locally famous beer-swilling pig Pinky (inset) if someone agrees to pick up the tab on her pub in eastern Tasmania. For years, Pinky has entertained guests at Free’s pub by sharing pints with customers. Free said she’s asking more than , for her beloved Pub in the Paddock. And once the pub and the beer-drinking pig are sold, she plans to retire back to her family farm.
Not a single horse appears on Detroit’s inventory, but the Motor City still employs a horseshoer. According to a consultant’s report obtained by the Detroit Free Press,, the Detroit Water and Sewage Department (DWSD) employs a horseshoer at a cost to the city of nearly , per year in salary and benefits. According to the official job description—not updated since —the DWSD horseshoer is required to “shoe horses and to do general blacksmith work.” Problem: No one can seem to remember the last time the water department owned a horse. A DWSD spokesman said the official department horseshoer actually works as a welder.
A Nepalese farmer turned the tables on an aggressive and venomous cobra that bit him: The farmer bit back. While tending his rice paddy on the evening of Aug. , farmer Mohammed Salmo Miya felt a snake bite him. Calmly, Miya walked back home to his village to grab a torch to investigate the species of the snake. Once Miya returned to the field and identified the assailant as a cobra, the farmer remembered the wisdom of a local snake charmer: “A snake charmer told me that if a snake bites you, bite it until it is dead and nothing will happen to you,” he told the BBC. And that’s what the -year-old did. After killing the snake with his own teeth, Miya eventually sought medical attention at the insistence of his family. Stay connected: Sign up to receive email updates at WORLDmag.com/email
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WORLD
9/3/12 2:50 PM
Janie B. Cheaney
Hollow at the core
The latest effort at educational standards suffers from the same flaw as the others
>>
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each. Mathematics consists of eight basic principles in four domains for each grade level with the addition of six conceptual categories for high school. The grand goal is “college and career readiness.” There’s nothing new in the standards, and nothing particularly wrong with them either. They sound very similar to NCLB standards, which owed their wording to Goals standards, which were based on more or less traditional expectations. What is new is the national scope. States could set their own standards for NCLB—a fatal weakness, as it turned out—but the Common Core applies to all participants. Participation is voluntary. Just one catch: States that wanted to compete for Race to the Top money three years ago had to adopt the standards. Forty-eight of them did, excluding Texas (which is too big to mess with), and Alaska. Now that Race to the Top money is gone, the Obama administration is signaling it may withhold Title I aid to low-income schools in states that don’t get with the program. The federal government has an inexhaustible supply of carrots and sticks. But even worse than their potential for federal manipulation, ambitious plans like NCLB and CCSS inevitably fall prey to the vending machine theory: Put in x, receive y. Put in Curious George, receive “Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories” or “Interpret point of view in a text.” Education becomes a checklist of conceptual categories to be covered and little circles to be filled in so the USA can compete in a global market. What’s missing is the actual child. A “text” will produce different responses in different children, or none at all. Feed input A into Sadie and you may get output C, or Mikey will give you a combination of output A and C, and Ernesto won’t get it until third grade, but he would have been all over output C in third-grade math. Busy little competitors they are not, but competitiveness shouldn’t be the goal of education anyway—much less “college and career readiness.” What education traditionally aims to produce can’t be accomplished with a checklist: reasoning, moral human beings. Without them, any nation is at risk. A
KRIEG BARRIE
I , P R’ National Commission on Excellence in Education produced a report called A Nation at Risk, which caused consternation from coast to coast. In years the SAT scores of American students had fallen by points in the verbal section and in the math, with dire consequences for our ability to compete in a global market. The commission made stern recommendations regarding educational content and extent, including seven-hour school days, -day school years, higher teacher salaries, and three years each of math and science in high school. Also, a greater role for the federal government in “helping meet the needs of key groups of students,” such as the gifted and the economically disadvantaged. In case you’re wondering, it didn’t work. In , a nonpartisan organization called Strong American Schools reported that “stunningly few of the Commission’s recommendations actually have been enacted.” The problem was political: “organized special interests and political inertia.” The solution was also political: “vigorous national leadership to improve education.” We can’t seem to steel ourselves against the siren call of “vigorous national leadership.” In the first Bush administration it was Goals ; in the second it was No Child Left Behind (NCLB). “Goals” did not meet its goals and NCLB succeeded mainly in becoming universally despised. The latest acronym to ride to the rescue is the Common Core State Standards, or CCSS. Technically this is not a federal initiative, but a coordinated effort by the State Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, who commissioned a nonpartisan council called Achieve to write the standards and implementation guidelines. After two years, Achieve has published the Language Arts and Mathematics Standards, with Science and Social Studies yet to come. Language Arts covers Reading, Writing, Speaking & Listening, Language, and Media & Technology, with “anchor standards” for
Email: jcheaney@worldmag.com
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Reviews Movies & TV > Books > Q&A > Music
Shallow Courage Veritas Entertainment
MOVIE: Christianproduced film lacks the depth to make its point well by Megan Basham
>>
It’s never a good sign when a movie includes a spontaneous burst of spectator applause. You know the scene; you’ve seen it before in everything from romantic comedies to legal dramas to sports biopics. A main character, at a point of crisis, gives an impromptu speech about his love for the girl or his love for the law or his love for the game and a crowd of otherwise disinterested or possibly hostile onlookers is suddenly caught up in his passion and can’t resist demonstrating their
Email: mbasham@worldmag.com
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approval with a round of f urious clapping. Good screenwriters, recognizing them for the obvious audience-manipulators they are, avoid these scenes. Last Ounce of Courage features three of them. It’s not that the Christian-produced film, rated PG and releasing to 1,200 theaters nationwide on Sept. 14, doesn’t have a valid point to make. People of various religious stripes feel overwhelmed and TAKE IT ON FAITH: School custodian frustrated by secularist Leonard (Charles efforts to scrub the Graham) speaks to public sphere of all signs Christian (Hunter of faith. But it fails to put Gomez). S e p t e m b e r 2 2 , 2 0 1 2 W O R L D
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Reviews > Movies & TV
WORLD SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
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DOCUMENTARY
2016: Obama’s America
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T that is : Obama’s America just keeps rolling along. After earning more than million in its first two weeks of wide release, it is on pace to pass Bowling for Columbine and An Inconvenient Truth to become the second-highest-grossing political documentary ever (Fahrenheit / holding the top spot). Clearly its tagline’s promise to reveal the Barack Obama the media failed to investigate (“Love him, hate him, you don’t know him”) has proved a powerful enticement for moviegoers. And to a certain degree, the film delivers. Writer/director/narrative-guide Dinesh D’Souza offers up plenty of heretofore unpublicized information about the president, including his relationship with communist writer and activist Frank Marshall Davis and the pains his mother took to inculcate him with her leftist ideology. We learn, for example, that she intentionally separated him from a stepfather who tended to have views far more pro-American and pro-capitalist than her own. Segments dealing with the college-age Obama’s political activities and his later involvement with domestic terrorists like Bill Ayers are similarly valid and illuminating territory for viewers who haven’t heard these things before. Where the film falls short, however, is when D’Souza plays poor man’s psychoanalyst. While it is fair to speculate that Obama’s absentee Kenyan father . -. influenced his beliefs about colonialism, it doesn’t according to Box Office Mojo seem just to pronounce definitively what that influCAUTIONS: Quantity of sexual (S), violent (V), and foul-language (L) content on a - ence might be. Many young men grow up without a scale, with high, from kids-in-mind.com dad around. Not all of them grow up to become comS V L munity organizers espousing socialist philosophies. 1̀ The Possession PG-13 ........... It’s particularly strange that D’Souza devotes so 2̀ Lawless R.................................... much time to his Obama-as-Third-World-Anti3̀ The Expendables R............ colonialist theory given how much evidence he has 4̀ The Bourne Legacy* PG-13 ... amassed for Obama-as-run-of-the-mill-radical. 5̀ ParaNorman* PG ..................... From his mother, to his college associates, to his pre6̀ The Odd Life of presidency career, to his actual words, everything in Timothy Green*PG ................ the president’s background and, well, foreground 7̀ The Dark Knight paints him as nothing more nor less than a hard-left Rises* PG-13................................ activist. This may not be quite as exotic, but for a 8̀ The Campaign R ...................... center-right country, it’s still just as frightening. 9̀ Obama’s America* not rated 10 Hope Springs* PG-13 .............. `
BOX OFFICE TOP 10
*Reviewed by WORLD
9/4/12 2:42 PM
AUGUSTINE: IGNATIUS PRESS • PERKS: JOHN BRAMLEY/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT
person’s emotional journey, there’s little reason to care when they’ve reached the end of it. Unfortunately, the characters who aren’t given stark attitudinal shifts get even shallower treatment. Christians have justifiably complained over the years about how Hollywood scripts demonize them. Too often they have us parroting rote, negative dialogue of what they think an uptight Christian would say without bothering to investigate our beliefs or to represent them accurately. So while I understand the temptation to reverse this treatment, I wouldn’t call it Christ-like. Though some of the language here mirrors what we often hear from the ACLU and public-school officials, Last Ounce of Courage simplifies and dumbs down their arguments to such a degree that they become ugly stereotypes rather than real people. That Bob and his supporters achieve a rhetorical victory over such meager reasoning isn’t much of an accomplishment, and doesn’t provide much entertainment either.
OBAMA’S AMERICA FOUNDATION
that point into the mouths of three-dimensional characters who arrive at their moments of epiphany in any way that feels authentic. To wit, Bob Revere (Marshall Teague), the small-town mayor who’s on a crusade to restore biblical symbolism to Christmas, is supposedly responding to a challenge from his teenage grandson, Christian (Hunter Gomez). The boy and his mother moved away after his father, Bob’s son, died in combat, and they haven’t seen each other for years. Yet hardly any time is devoted to building a believable relationship between grandfather and grandson. We are to take it on faith that at some point, off screen, a deep bond has developed between them. The same goes for Christian’s mother, Kari (Nikki Novak). She’s spent the time since her husband’s death in Los Angeles, getting involved, she says, in things she shouldn’t have. What these things are and why she decided to disentangle herself from them is a mystery. All we know is she’s repentant. Even the smaller characters make dramatic turns of opinion without much justification. A lawsuit-phobic principal who begins by banning the Bible from his school ends by cheering as Bob hoists a cross onto a public building. Bob’s wayward newscaster daughter suddenly decides she wants to be a part of the family again. All of this, it seems, is sparked by Bob’s inspirational speeches and meant to induce the warm-fuzzy feelings of patriotism and reconciliation. But when we aren’t given the arc of a
D'Souza interviewing George Obama in Nairobi, Kenya
MOVIE
Restless Heart: The Confessions of Augustine by Emily Whitten
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What do you get when you put brilliant actors, authentic Tunisian sets, and a hero of the Christian faith in the hands of a consistently under-performing director? A mediocre movie like Restless Heart. Produced as part of Lux Vide’s IMPERIUM collection, Restless Heart is one of six separate miniseries about imperial Rome shot on location in Tunisia. American viewers have been privy to several of these modestly successful miniseries-turned-movies since 2000 (i.e., St. Peter starring Omar Sharif in 2005). Restless Heart, like others in the series, includes very talented performers. Augustine’s mother is played by wellestablished Italian actress Monica Guerritore, and she affectingly conveys the anxiety a mother must feel watching her son go the way of scoffers. Bishop Ambrose (Andrea Giordana) shows us a man who fights for the truth with fire and skill,
but out of humility rather than pride. And then there is Augustine himself (played by Alessandro Preziosi and Franco Nero). Quotes from his fifth-century autobiography, Confessions, present his hopes, fears, and search for God in some of the most elegant language ever penned. We see Augustine as a child admiring the rhetorical skill of Roman publicans, and we follow his quest for power and prestige as a lawyer. We see his excesses with drink and women, but nowhere is the presentation offensive. But once the protagonist’s restless heart finds rest, director Christian Duguay seems at a loss. He discards the powerful theme of grace, and Augustine’s post-conversion life feels disconnected, like religious propaganda. The postscript that his writings helped bring a new world order—Christendom— seems farcical compared to the movie’s earlier heartfelt redemption. Tragic, considering the real Augustine’s emphasis on grace following conversion, and his valiant defense of rest in God against Pelagius and other heretics who bid men climb the broken ladder of good works to glory.
MOVIE
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Obama’s America Foundation
augustine: IGNATIUS PRESS • perks: John Bramley/summit entertainment
by Stephanie Perrault
>>
Moviegoers packed the final pre-release showing of The Perks of Being a Wallflower—a teenager’s coming-of-age story set in 1990s Pittsburgh. Adolescents and young adults crowded the lobby, waving their tickets and begging the screening attendant to let them in. I would have never made it without my press credentials. In the feeble half-light, I noticed the gentleman on my right was flipping through the book that inspired the movie. Written by filmmaker Stephen Chbosky as a series of letters to an imaginary friend, the book tells the story of introspective and slightly awkward Charlie as he starts high
school and struggles to find friendship. The book is not particularly wellwritten and its theme is unoriginal, yet Perks of Being a Wallflower is very popular with young adults. It is also one of the American Library Association’s most frequently challenged books of 2009, and for good reason. The film is a morass of teenage drug use, sexual experimentation, homosexuality, suicide, and obscene language. It originally earned an R rating, but Chbosky and his associates at Lionsgate Motion Picture Group appealed the rating and got it downgraded to PG-13, removing nothing from the original footage.
See all our movie reviews at worldmag.com/movies
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The result is a raw representation of one lonely young man’s search for healing in a world broken by sexual sin and suicidal depression. But that’s not the most disturbing part. What’s most startling is the complete absence of parental involvement in the young people’s lives. Though Charlie comes from a functional two-parent home, his parents have no idea what happens in the lives of their children. This passivity has farreaching effects. Their children make poor relational choices, hide their difficulties, and seek help and counsel from their friends, who encourage drugs and sexual experimentation. Charlie’s world is very dark and his search for significance entirely peerbased. When his friends leave for college, he has a mental breakdown and spends several weeks in a mental hospital. This precipitates a level of healing with his parents and siblings, but would Charlie’s story be different if his parents were as concerned about his mind and heart as they were about his favorite meal? S e p t e m b e r 2 2 , 2 0 1 2 W O R L D
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Reviews > Books
A political fall
Looming election means political books are blooming BY MARVIN OLASKY
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T but serious politics book I’ve read recently is Yale computer science professor David Gelernter’s America-Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture and Ushered in the Obamacrats (Encounter, ). He sprinkles wry observations throughout, starting with an explanation that intellectuals often rebel because they see folks of ordinary intelligence as rabble: “Any society that does not give its intellectuals money, does not give them prestige, but does give them cultural influence, is grossly foolish.” Gelernter is a thinker like those he describes who “get down and play in the sand”: Gelernter wants
to “feel the grit beneath his fingernails, smell the dust … know all about real people and places and things and goings-on.” But he writes that the left and its leading representative, Barack Obama, substitute “for the intractable bloody mess called reality a seamless, silky tapestry of pure ideas.” He calls “left-liberalism” a new religion, PORGIs—post-religious, global intellectuals—its priests, and Barack Obama “important not because he is exceptional but because he is typical. ... He represents the post-cultural-religion PORGI elite.” When presidential elections loom, heated books bloom. Our WORLD slogan has been “Sensational facts, understated prose,” but writers find it hard to be reserved when discussing the most radical administration in U.S. history. For example, David Limbaugh’s
The Great Destroyer (Regnery, ) is unrelenting in its criticism of an Obama administration that has brought us “The War on Our Culture and Values,” “The War on the Economy,” “The War on Oil,” “The War on Business,” and eight more wars. Similarly, Jose Rodriguez’s Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Action After / Saved American Lives (Simon & Schuster, ) takes no prisoners in its defense of the techniques the Bush administration used in its war on terror: He criticizes an Obama administration “afraid to use successful, legal, and safe techniques.” Amy Black’s Honoring God in Red or Blue (Moody, ) is a good introductory civics primer for those not looking for specifics about this year’s campaign. For those who want to go issue by issue, Wayne Grudem’s two Voting as a Christian books (Zondervan, ) are worthwhile: One is on social issues, one is on economic and foreign policy issues, and both are paperback takeouts from Grudem’s large book from , Politics—According to the Bible. I haven’t reviewed my own books in WORLD, but what about a book by the president of the Acton Institute, a think tank with which I’ve been loosely associated for years? Compromise: I’ll say tersely that Robert Sirico’s Defending the Free Market (Regnery, ) is a highly readable look at the morality of capitalism.
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SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
ANDREAS RENTZ/GETTY IMAGES/HUBERT BURDA MEDIA
Aili and Andres McConnon’s Road to Valor (Crown, ) shows how Italy in almost descended into a Communist-generated civil war—until cyclist Gino Bartali’s victory in the Tour de France temporarily focused Italian minds on achievement against odds. More U.S. Civil War books have emerged as America goes deep into the th anniversary of our tragic war that at least ended another tragedy, slavery. Allen Guelzo’s Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War & Reconstruction (Oxford U. Press, ) is a thoughtful and fluidly written history of the war and Reconstruction, and Walter Stahr’s Seward (Simon & Schuster, ) takes Lincoln’s secretary of state (and “indispensable man”) out of the Alaskan icebox into which he’s often placed and forgotten. John and Charles Lockwood’s The Siege of Washington (Oxford, ) vibrantly brings to life the first weeks of the war. Jack Hurst’s Born to Battle (Basic, ) brings two lives into focus: Ulysses S. Grant and Nathan Bedford Forrest, both from impoverished backgrounds, demanded that others surrender to them unconditionally. One big difference is that the Union made great use of Grant but class elitism held back Forrest’s advance.
Email: molasky@worldmag.com
8/31/12 2:13 PM
HANDOUT
DEATH AND LIFE
NOTABLE BOOKS
Four children’s series, beginning or ending > reviewed by .
Deadweather and Sunrise Geoff Rodkey Eggbert Masterson, or Egg, is the youngest son of a plantation owner on the wretched island of Deadweather. One fateful day, his father makes a discovery that sends the family packing to nearby Sunrise Island for a consultation with an attorney. Shortly after, Egg finds himself the sole heir of a mysterious legacy—and the target of deadly foes. His rough world breeds colorful characters, including a spirited heroine, multifaceted villains, and lots of pirates. This first volume in the Chronicles of Egg might be best described as a cross between Treasure Island and Candide—and a good, old-fashioned adventure yarn. Candide Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again Frank Cottrell Boyce The Tootings’ adventures begin when Dad announces he’s been fired. The best news ever—now they can travel! But once on the road, the old camper van Dad bought appears to have a mind of her own, insisting on a change of headlights, tires, fenders, and finally a full transformation that includes flight capability. Ian Fleming’s heirs tapped Boyce to continue Fleming’s only children’s novel, and they chose wisely. The author knows how to have fun with the exaggerated characters, cool gadgets, and outlandish villains of a James-Bond-like scenario—not to mention the ultimate cliffhanger, ensuring more titles in the series.
The Last Guardian Eoin Colfer Artemis Fowl, a child prodigy and son of an Irish crime lord, made his first appearance in , riding the Harry Potter wave. But even though Artemis deals with fairies and trolls and other fantasy creatures, he has no magical powers, just a brilliant mind and a ruthless streak that is slowly tempered over the next seven volumes. The Last Guardian wraps up the series with Artemis as a young man who’s grown in compassion and even humility. The complex plots weave elements of crime and science fiction, myth, and fairy tale in a way that appeals to readers and older.
ANDREAS RENTZ/GETTY IMAGES/HUBERT BURDA MEDIA
HANDOUT
Now Morris Gleitzman This trilogy began with Once, the story of -year-old Felix, who escapes a Polish Catholic orphanage because he’s convinced his Jewish parents are looking for him. But the world has changed since they left him there for safekeeping: Nazis have overrun Poland and Felix understands gradually that their aim is to eliminate people like him. Now is told by Felix’s granddaughter, living under a burden of history in present-day Australia. Though the books are short and the narrative simple, they are not for readers younger than —but as an eloquent and understated testimony of the Holocaust, they are unmatched. See all our reviews at worldmag.com/books
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SPOTLIGHT Every children’s book editor knows the “kill the parents” principle— meaning the necessity of letting juvenile heroes of juvenile fiction solve problems for themselves, with little or no parental intervention. Gertrude Chandler Warner’s Boxcar Children series began with a literal example: Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny, orphaned by a tragic accident, run away and eventually make their home in an abandoned boxcar. If you ever wondered about their previous family life, The Boxcar Children Beginning pictures the four siblings with their parents at Fair Meadow Farm. The prequel is written by Patricia MacLachlan, author of Sarah Plain and Tall, whose spare, poignant voice is a natural for the bucolic setting and quiet story. Young readers will easily segue from Beginning to Warner’s Boxcar Children, though adults will wonder why the illustrations seem to date from the s instead of the original s.
SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
WORLD
8/31/12 2:13 PM
Reviews > Q&A
‘Earned success’ Free enterprise is fair, says economist ARTHUR BROOKS, and arguments for it should emphasize its morality By Marvin Olasky
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When you told your dad about your new plan, what did he say? I said, “Dad, I want to become an economist.” After a silence he said, “Why would you want to do that? You’re at
the top of your career.” I said, “Because I’m not happy.” He said, “What makes you so special?” Some students take out enormous loans to go to
prestigious schools. You’ve done pretty well without going down that path. While in Barcelona I started taking college courses by extension again. My B.A. is from a place in
WORLD September 22, 2012
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Luke Sharrett
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Arthur Brooks is the president of the American Enterprise Institute, one of Washington’s leading think tanks. His books include The Battle (WORLD’s Book of the Year in 2010) and this year’s The Road to Freedom. Before pursuing an academic career he played the French horn in major orchestras. How many French hornists have become presidents of the American Enterprise Institute? One. What are the similarities between playing the French horn and being president of AEI? Creativity ... the working out of ideas that are of interest to other people ... and the privilege of having audiences enjoy your work. The only barriers in front of you are those put in place by your own imagination. Why did you decide to move from a prestigious orchestra position to academic work? Things were going well ... and I wasn’t happy. What I wanted to be was an economist. I wanted to do that analysis of how the gears turn in society. I hadn’t even gone to college, so at 28 I had to go to college and get a graduate degree.
Luke Sharrett
New Jersey called Thomas Edison State College. I’ve never visited the place, but I’m thankful for it: Got a degree in four years for $10,000, books and all. I wonder what the school colors are.
That hasn’t stopped you in your career. Yeah, not until today when everybody just found out I went to correspondence school. A Harvard economist once told me he did not plan to have any children because he figured that every child would cost him a book, and he wanted to publish books rather than have children. You have three children, and you’ve published lots of books. Does having children inspire you to publish more? I do believe the world will benefit more from my children than it will from my books, but there is a connection. My wife and I had had our two sons biologically. I was writing this book about charity and finding that when people give to charities their lives improve dramatically. I wrote a chapter on it, and everything I write my wife Esther reads. That’s wise. For sure. She’s spiked a lot of my stuff. Susan probably spikes your stuff too sometimes, right? Yeah. A couple times that she hasn’t I wish she had. Exactly. So I brought home this chapter that shows charitable actions make you happy and healthy. Esther ruminated on it for a while, then said, “We ought to use the information in this book to change our lives a little bit. I think we should give more.” I said, “OK, I’ll write a check.” And she said, “I think we should adopt a baby.” I said, “It’s only a book!” Then of course I had no argument, so we did. We adopted our daughter from China. She’s now 8 years old. Your new book, The Road to Freedom: Why is that trip necessary? People who agree that free enterprise is the best
system to improve the lives of the most people have failed to make the most persuasive arguments for it. It’s horrible. We stupidly lose arguments all the time. You make this bulletproof case that the only way to bring our economy back is by lowering our corporate tax and having an effective fiscal consolidation, etc., etc. Then your opponent in a debate says ... “Yes, but I just met a little girl who lives with her mother in a car. Why don’t you want the government to help them?” And you lose the argument immediately—even though that’s a dubious anecdotal argument, and your argument has all the data behind it. Don’t those debates often seem like a battle of the moral left vs. the materialistic right—and that’s deadly for the right? It’s an absolute killer. You think grandma is going to let Paul Ryan fiddle with her Social Security on the promise that her grandkids might get a slightly better mortgage rate? No way! The argument has to be moral. It has to be about fairness. It has to be about stealing from future generations and getting in the way of entrepreneurs—getting in the way of people who are actually trying to earn their success. Two questions: First, how should we define fairness? Seventy percent of Americans believe that true fairness means rewarding merit and creating an opportunity society, which is exactly what the free enterprise system is designed to do. The fairest system is one in which people have an opportunity to rise. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a safety net, but a safety net is not middle-class welfare. It’s not
spreading the wealth and etting rid of risk: It’s simply g making sure that people don’t have the most abysmal poverty and starve. So you don’t think the Patrick Henry “A” students here should give 10 percent of their points to the “D” students so they can move up to “C”? I tried this once at my college. About halfway through a semester I said, “I’m going to take a quarter of the points from students at the top of the class and give those to people at the bottom of the class. Why? Because I’m going to spread the wealth around!” Every person in the class— including the “D” students— knew that was idiotic because it wasn’t fair. Second question: “Earned success” is a key concept in your book. What does that mean? Earned success is the idea that you’re creating value with your life and value in the lives of other people. It’s not money per se: It’s the value you create with your life. You can denominate it with souls saved, or neighborhoods that are habitable, or clean drinking water in Africa, or lots of money, or beautiful works of art, or having children who are honest and have good values, or whatever. People who say they’ve earned their success are the happiest people. It has to be earned. So we should try to let everyone have a shot at earned success? We have to try to recognize the ways that our opportunity society fails, and then take it upon ourselves to rectify those failures. What are we doing, for example, about the civil-rights nightmare that is public education today? We have whole public-school systems that exist for the benefit of grown-ups and not kids. A
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Left notes
With partisan rants, RY COODER sounds more like a propagandist than an artist BY ARSENIO ORTEZA
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So when Cooder sings, “I got a cold, cold feeling that Jim Crow is coming ’round once more” (in the Romney/ Ryan-derangement-syndrome “Cold, Cold Feeling”) and “States’ rights is his game, Jim Crow is his name” (in the Tea Party-derangement-syndrome “Going to Tampa”) on Election Special, he’s simultaneously hindering his aesthetic appeal with predictability and unwittingly echoing Joe Biden’s recent declaration that rich, white Republicans are chomping at the bit to put black folks back in chains. And speaking of black and white, life is never as simple as Cooder at his most partisan (which is most of the time these days) makes it seem. There’s plenty of blame to go around for the mess in America. Cooder, by not recognizing as much and the musical richness of his latest offerings notwithstanding, comes off more like a propagandist than the artist that, one hopes, he still has it in him to be. And sometimes he’s still that artist. On Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down’s amazing “John Lee Hooker for President,” Cooder not only turns in the most foot-stompingly perfect John Lee Hooker impersonation ever but also stakes out a middle ground that it’s actually possible to believe Hooker himself might’ve claimed. “I want everybody to know I’m strictly copastatic, I ain’t Republican or Democratic,” sings Cooder in a voice that could give aural blackface a good name. “I got a new program for the nation. It’s gonna be groove time, a big sensation.” Give Cooder-as-Hooker this much: Such a platform sure beats tax and spend.
HARRY’S TARGETS Joining Cooder in the election-year musical sweepstakes is the satirist Harry Shearer. His latest album, Can’t Take a Hint (Courgette) features acts (most notably Fountains of Wayne, Dr. John, and Shearer’s wife Judith Owen) and in so doing guarantees sufficient musicality. But, except for the bitingly clever, Madonna-skewering “Like a Charity,” Shearer’s targets—predatory priests (“Deaf Boys”), Sarah Palin (“Bridge to Nowhere”), Joe the Plumber (“Joe the Plumber”)—are depressingly obvious. Harrys who “give ’em hell” are an American tradition. But the “’em” isn’t supposed to include the audience.
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SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
COODER: ROSS GILMORE/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES • SHEARER: CHRIS PIZZELLO/AP
M , even those who don’t pay attention to the / political-news cycle, can tell that it’s an election year. For what other reason, for example, would Bruce Springsteen drag his increasingly tiresome Woody-Guthrie-on-steroids routine out for yet another tour if not to “rock the vote” one more time? And “The Boss” is not alone. Consider, for another example, Ry Cooder. “His most recent songs,” wrote Lawrence Downes in a recent New York Times editorial lamenting the ineffectualness in contemporary musical protests, “are pure politics, torn fresh from the headlines . …” Downes is not entirely accurate. First, the -year-old roots-rocker’s songs are pure leftist politics. Second, the best songs on his musically rich, ideologically impoverished last two albums (Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down and Election Special [both Nonesuch], respectively) wouldn’t even be considered all that political in a context other than the one created by the songs that Downes cites. Those quibbles aside, though, Downes is correct. More overtly contemporary political music than Cooder’s is not being made. That’s a shame. By speaking only for Obama voters and against Romney voters, Cooder instantly reduces his audience by half. Also, any successful form of entertainment requires some element of surprise, and, frankly, there hasn’t been anything surprising for decades in discovering that a guitarplaying singer-songwriter is liberal.
Email: aorteza@worldmag.com
8/31/12 2:09 PM
ANDY BATT
Reviews > Music
NOTABLE CDs
Five new pop-rock releases > reviewed by
The Sparrow Lawrence Arabia This New Zealander’s melodies are like his lyrics— clever without drawing attention to their own cleverness, rooted in a Lennon/McCartney-like sense of pop history while not seeming overdeferential, and light with a hint that something darker and heavier might be this way coming. Take, for example, “The Bisexual.” In it, a heterosexual man finds himself the object of homosexual seduction and is surprised by his lack of revulsion. It does not, however, suggest for a second that to succumb would mean anything less than “disaster.”
Instrumental party music of the s remains the good, clean fun it always was, no matter how many adults perceived it to be otherwise at the time. But it’s hard to recreate
Reggae Worship: A Roots Revival Christafari
or improve it without seeming
The problem with this latest installment in the World’s Best Reggae Band’s worship series is simple: It’s too long. How long is too long? Well, traditionally speaking, anything over minutes is pushing it, and this album clocks in near . But, more to the point, it’s not until Track Eight, “Faithful One,” that the project stops sounding like “Hooked on Worship” for Bob Marley fans and starts sounding like a worthwhile genre of its own. Nine more songs follow. “To Obey” and “Garden” are pretty good too.
Antiseptic Bloodbath
COODER: ROSS GILMORE/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES • SHEARER: CHRIS PIZZELLO/AP
Tourniquet Believe it or not, there’s a type of person who, particularly after a long day, wants nothing so much as to kick back and to subject his eardrums to a full-volume, heavy-metal massage. And, if that person happens to be a believer, the less Satanic that heavy metal the better. Metal doesn’t get much less Satanic than Tourniquet, who, years after its debut, continues to combine overt Christianity, animalrights advocacy, and other obsessions atop in-your-face ferocity better than anyone else.
CTRL Derek Webb
ANDY BATT
SPOTLIGHT
nostalgic. Congratulations, therefore, to those masked surf-rockers Los Straitjackets and those neckerchief-wearing Stax Records devotees the Satin Chaps for providing hope that in the Land of Dances there may still be a few acres of arable real estate left. On Los Straitjacket’s Jet Set (Yep Roc) and the Satin Chaps’ self-released Might I Suggest the Chaps, it’s hard to tell whether Satin Chaps the defining characteristic is enthusiasm or affection, as dollops of both come through. And while guessing which ’s act Los Straitjackets are echoing here or the Satin Chaps are echoing there might make for a good game of beach-blanket bingo, there are no prerequisites for vicariously enjoying the good time that was obviously had by both.
Whatever else the bad boy of Christian rock (well, he has David Bazan for competition) might mean by calling this album CTRL, this much is certain: By leading with an affirmation of the resurrection of the dead, he imposes limitations on his more controversial tendencies. The word “control” itself appears in two songs. Other motifs include sleep, insomnia, and the flesh’s inherently sacramental nature. Maybe that Webb and his ominous choir deliver these meditations with an appropriately reverential restraint is, in a way, explanation, and aesthetic triumph, enough. See all our reviews at worldmag.com/music
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SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
WORLD
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Mindy Belz
Mother of all battles
U.S. cities shouldn’t be afraid to challenge new and outsized mosque sites
>>
WORLD
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a state court judge. Plaintiffs’ attorneys are still scratching their heads: “It’s a big question mark in our mind. The federal district court can’t be an appellate court for a state court ruling, and that’s what they’ve done,” said attorney Tom Smith. Not surprising, funds to finance the project in a Muslim community so small are coming from outside sources. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the National American Islamic Trust (NAIT) are believed to be providing support. Both are unindicted co-conspirators in a Hamas terrorist funding case involving the Holy Land Foundation. With support from two of the largest Muslim advocacy groups in the country, also not surprising is that efforts haven’t stopped with the Islamic Center’s opening. Abdou Katih, vice president of the center, has suggested the county school board become compliant with Sharia, or Islamic, law. A pamphlet he sent to the board advises school administrators to provide space for Muslim students to pray during the day (and warns that they may not answer a teacher during prayer times). It warns against serving foods containing vanilla extract or Dijon mustard because they contain alcohol. And it encourages school boards to employ “qualified Muslim educators” in the textbook selection process, “particularly for history, social studies, and geography texts.” Statewide, Republican lawmakers last month challenged Gov. Bill Haslam, also a Republican, over the use of an American Muslim Advisory Council to consult with the state’s public safety and children’s services departments. Local officials, cowed by sympathetic media coverage and charges of bigotry from Muslim groups, are hoodwinked into believing that these battles are about religious liberty. But they are about religious coercion. Religious liberty is no absolute right, but exists alongside preserving other rights, and the common good. That includes legitimate concerns over local—and national—security. Around the world radical, jihadist teaching against the West, against Christians, and against Jews begins in local mosques. An added hurdle for communities like Murfreesboro: What’s said inside the mosque is said in Arabic. Local communities shouldn’t shrink from the opportunity these challenges present to reach out to Muslims and learn more about them. But neither should they shrink from asking hard questions and demanding good citizenship of all. A
MARK HUMPHREY/AP
I’ built by Saddam Hussein (remember the “Mother of All Battles” mosque with minarets built in the shape of Scud missiles?), and I’ve visited the beautiful Hassan II mosque in Casablanca, where , people can worship at one time. It fronts the Atlantic Ocean, has the world’s tallest minaret, and clocks in at over million square feet. By comparison, the mosque that opened last month in Murfreesboro, Tenn., seems small-scale: The ,-square-foot worship center of a planned ,-square-foot complex began services on Aug. . But Casablanca is a city of over million Muslims, while Murfreesboro—a county seat in middle Tennessee of , residents— has perhaps Muslims. (The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro reports - families living in the area but shows only active paying family members in its annual report.) That means times more square feet per Muslim in Murfreesboro than in Morocco. It raises the question: If they’ve built it, who will come? According to figures compiled by The Wall Street Journal, the number of U.S. mosques has more than doubled in the last years—from about in to more than , today—while the Muslim population, at less than percent of the U.S. population, has grown substantially less—from an estimated . million in to about . million today. If a mosque has gone up recently near you, you know that as buildings go they are outsized and imposing. It’s not surprising that most have been accompanied by controversy. It’s surprising how many, in this era of small footprints and “good growth,” have found their way past local zoning boards and city councils. Residents in Murfreesboro did battle against the Islamic Center since its project was announced two years ago, losing only in July when a federal district judge—acting on a motion filed by the federal U.S. attorney on behalf of the Islamic Center—overruled
Email: mbelz@worldmag.com
9/3/12 4:03 PM
Entertain Your Imagination . . . and Stretch Your Mind
John Knox lives a life of adventure and danger. Here is the surprising story of a man unflinching in his stand for the gospel, even in the face of assassins and death.
When the battleaxe of Cynwulf, a half-Viking, half-Saxon misfit, is found in a dead man’s skull, he must clear his name or face the vengeance of his Anglo-Saxon community.
An epic struggle against evil commences as Morumus, a devout monk, seeks to unearth the truth of the Dark Faith.
“A fine work, honoring the memory and message of the Thundering Scot.” —Liz Curtis Higgs
“Hand of Vengeance is an amazing tale of intrigue and adventure you won’t want to miss.” —Brock Eastman
“Gripping, well-written fantasy. . . . The Dark Faith sends well-rounded characters on a quest that grows darker as the mystery deepens.” —Kathy Tyers
400 pages | paper | $14.99
192 pages | paper | $11.99 (ages 9-14)
368 pages | paper | $14.99
Risk it all—join the Wikks in the ancient jungles of planet Evad as they search for their kidnapped parents. Can they find the clues they need and stay one step ahead of the Übel? “Brock Eastman ignites his pen and drives the reader to burn through each page.” —Wayne Thomas Batson 408 pages | paper | $12.99
Available now from
www.christianbook.com and everywhere good books are sold
MARK HUMPHREY/AP
See also Book One in The Quest for Truth series.
1 (800) 631-0094 | www.prpbooks.com
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Int the
r r r campaign
2012
last laps Inside the GOP’s final push for the White House: As Republicans try to fire up the grassroots, many of those activists find more motivation in opposing a failed president than in supporting the Republican nominee
O
r by Jamie Dean in Tampa, Fla. r
n a Saturday morning in a quiet strip mall in Clearwater, Fla., a handful of locals in a storefront office hover around a pink coffee maker and a plastic box of c hocolate donuts. Some discuss the Republican National Convention (RNC) that was set to descend on Tampa in two days. Others chat about church meetings and grandchildren as they stir powdered creamer into Styrofoam cups. Nearby, Robert Arnakis intensely checks his mobile phone. The senior staffer at the Virginia-based Leadership Institute has worked on two presidential campaigns and consulted with officials in a dozen countries. In 2004, his work on the campaign of Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., helped topple former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. Still, as scores of Republican heavy hitters descended on Tampa in late August, Arnakis was here in a storefront office 25
group effort: Romney makes a call to a voter and visits with volunteers during a stop at his Tampa, Fla., campaign headquarters. BRIAN BLANCO/ EPA/Newscom
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remained opposition to Obama, even in evening speeches by both Ryan and Romney. John Stemberger, president of the FFPC, said that his group is enjoying an unprecedented amount of volunteers and resources during this cycle, but most of it is centered on stopping the president: “The energy is negative energy.” Perhaps that’s enough motivation for some social conservatives and Tea Party activists, but what about undecided voters? Arnakis—one of two consultants leading the morning session in Clearwater for FFPC volunteers—tells the group they must learn how to talk to voters who haven’t made up their minds. Billy Kirkland agrees. Kirkland, who’s helping with the volunteer training, is a staffer with Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition—a three-yearold group that reports 500,000 members and aims to register 2 million unregistered conservative voters by this fall. Other independent groups have similar goals of reaching Here in Clearwater, Eric Scharn isn’t interested in the grassroots voters: Former Sen. Rick Santorum’s Patriot Voices Republican establishment. He and his wife, Patty, have reports it will mobilize the former candidate’s supporters for volunteered for the GOP in elections since 2000, but this year, the fall elections. Others include Americans for Prosperity, Scharn is disgruntled. “It kills me what both parties are Americans for Tax Reform, chapters of Focus on the Family, doing,” he says. “They both stink.” and local Tea Party organizations. Scharn is particularly discouraged over what he sees as the Still, the question remains: Are the grassroots interested GOP leadership’s distance from social conservatives and other enough? Dyan and Gery Cuprisin aren’t so sure. The couple activists, including Tea Party supporters. This year, Scharn and here at the Clearwater event is volunteering for the his wife will volunteer for just a handful of first time because of the apathy they see among candidates, and for efforts by groups like FFPC Eric and Patty friends and neighbors. “They’re more to promote pro-life and pro-marriage Scharn involved in the latest shows on TV than causes. what’s happening in the country,” says Like others here, Scharn seems Dyan. more angered with Obama than When their church—a excited about the alternative—a n on-denominational congregation common theme at the RNC. When of several thousand members— former Christian Coalition leader invited area churches to an Ralph Reed greeted pro-life and informational forum on issues and pro-marriage supporters at a candidates earlier this year, the convention event in Tampa, he couple says less than 50 people began by asking the crowd: “How showed up. excited are you about Paul Ryan?” Arnakis tells the group they Indeed, the vice presidential should emphasize the importance of candidate created more buzz than social issues in the upcoming election, Republican nominee Mitt Romney in but also learn how to talk to undecided some quarters. But the biggest buzz
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Stephen Morton/Polaris/Newscom
miles away, preparing to address 35 volunteers at folding tables. The reason: Despite the convention glitz, Arnakis believes the key to this fall’s election lies in this room. If that seems overblown, the conservative consultant points to 2008: President Barack Obama’s grassroots efforts crushed Republican nominee John McCain. Avoiding a repeat means mobilizing volunteers across the country in settings like these—a local chapter of the conservative Florida Family Policy Council (FFPC). “When you get in a room of 40 people, it’s hard to imagine the impact on a national level,” says Arnakis. “But across the country, you see the cumulative effect.” For conservatives hoping to recapture the White House, this year may hinge on the cumulative effect. With both candidates set to spend millions on television, radio, billboards, and mailings, campaign workers and independent groups on both sides are focusing on manpower: phone calling, door knocking, and talking with neighbors. It’s part of a broader strategy that recognizes at least two essentials: turning out enthused voters and winning over undecided ones. That means working hard in swing states and wooing key voter blocs. It also means mobilizing volunteers not only to convince like-minded voters, but to reach out to ones who aren’t sure. It’s a delicate balance. But beyond the televised convention speeches, a few days in Tampa offered an inside glimpse into the GOP’s final lap toward the White House. That lap includes choosing a central message, and deciding whether to embrace the social conservatives and grassroots activists that could help deliver the election, or stick to an establishment script that may feel safer.
manpower: Romney supporter Dee Lansford places campaign signs outside an event at the River City Brewing Company in Jacksonville, Fla.
jamie dean
Stephen Morton/Polaris/Newscom
oters about complex topics like Medicare and tax reform: v “How did Jesus communicate?” he asks the group. “In stories and examples. He took hard concepts and broke them down.” That’s a lesson the Romney camp should absorb. In a series of convention speeches in Tampa, a litany of Republican politicians spoke of the problems created by Obama. Fewer spoke of concrete solutions. In conversations with voters outside the convention hall, many spoke of “taking the country back” or stopping Obama, but fewer spoke of how to accomplish those goals. Back in Clearwater, Kirkland says that’s a problem when it comes to undecided voters. “An undecided voter doesn’t care about a party message,” he told the volunteers. “You have to talk to them about their issues.”
For social conservatives, some of their issues didn’t get heavy play during major convention speeches. Though Rick Santorum emphasized the importance of pro-life causes, and the GOP platform was pointedly pro-life, Romney devoted one line of a 37-minute speech to social issues: “As president, I’ll respect the sanctity of life. I’ll honor the institution of marriage.” Perhaps that was a political calculation after Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., caused an uproar by using the term “legitimate rape” when discussing abortion a week earlier. (An interviewer had asked Akin whether abortion should be legal in the cases of rape.)
By the middle of the RNC, the Obama campaign—which hadn’t emphasized its p ro-abortion stance—seized the controversy. A television ad running on large screens in the Tampa convention center warned that Romney favors overturning Roe v. Wade, and featured a woman saying: “It’s a scary time to be a woman.” Tony Perkins—president of the Family Research Council and a Louisiana delegate at the convention—said the GOP shouldn’t avoid the subject of abortion: “I think Republicans do themselves a disservice when they run from the fact that they are the party that protects life.” Indeed, with polls showing that pro-life sentiment is increasing in America, Perkins says: “It’s something to run to—not from.” Gary Bauer, president of the group American Values, says social conservatives face pushback from the “financial elites” of the GOP who would like to avoid discussing abortion and marriage. “But the worst possible thing that the party can do is get in the crouching position and put their hands over their head,” he said. Instead, Bauer says the party should emphasize that Democrats favor abortion in all circumstances: “The extremists on abortion are in the other party.” Extremism was on display a day later at a pro-life reception near the Tampa arena. While pro-life supporters gathered in a second-story reception area over a busy street, protesters from the group Code Pink gathered on the corner in full view of the window. They wore lewd costumes depicting female anatomy, and carried lewd signs. Upstairs, Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, dismissed the Democratic idea that the GOP is engaged in a war on women: “It’s actually a war for women.” Nance says it’s a war rooted in compassion for unborn children and the women who carry them: “If you let the other side define you, you lose.”
Social conservatives weren’t the only grassroots group
calling for a louder voice. A heated controversy over Republican Party rules erupted during the first day of the convention. A controversial proposal by Ben Ginsberg—lead attorney for the Romney campaign—would have allowed presidential
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nominees under some conditions to choose or replace delegates before conventions. (Delegates are typically elected by state and local parties.) Grassroots activists saw the move as an attempt to squelch the influence of candidates like Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who enjoyed widespread grassroots support during his presidential campaign. That proposal didn’t survive, but another one did: The GOP can now change party rules between conventions, instead of waiting for fuller debates on a convention floor. Morton Blackwell—a Romney supporter and social conservative on the rules committee—was appalled: “It’s the worst set of changes I’ve ever seen.” The changes not only diminish the influence of those with less power than the GOP leaders, they’re also counterproductive to winning supporters of candidates like Paul, he says: “We should be doing everything in our power to embrace those who lost the nomination. Not grind our heel in their face.” At least two Texas delegates said they wouldn’t vote for Romney after the changes. Outside the convention center, Stephen Lee and Brad McCally sported the crisp blue shirts and
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In a dead even presidential race, Mitt Romney is trying to draw minority and women voters away from President Obama r by Emily Belz in Tampa, Fla. r
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t this point in the presidential ampaign, political analysts believe c most voters are decided. Polls may show a 25 percent bloc of undecided voters, but in reality, analysts think that number is more like 5 percent. Undecideds who identify themselves as conservative tend to vote for the Republican candidate, and liberal undecideds tend to vote for the Democratic candidate. So for the next two months, President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney will be fighting for that truly undecided 5 percent, scouring the edges of every demographic for the winning margin. Republicans are now seeking out voters from two groups: women and minorities, especially Hispanics. In polls, Romney has 0 percent of the African-American vote and 30 percent of the Hispanic vote, compared to former President George W. Bush’s showing of 11 percent and 44 percent, respectively. Romney is beating Obama among married women voters, but not with single women. The Republican National Convention in Tampa was an obvious pitch to those women and minority voters, from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush delivering greetings in Spanish to Ann Romney holding the primetime slot on the convention’s first night. On the last day of the convention, Roberta Sidwell, 63, was chasing her toddler grandson down the hall in the Tampa Bay Times Forum. Of any of the speakers at the convention, she found Ann Romney the most compelling. “It hit home as a mom,” she said. But Sidwell represents the female demographic Mitt Romney is already winning—married women. A single woman, Kathy Rust, who worked in the Bush administration and was at the convention, said Ann Romney’s story about raising her five sons “resonates well. … I’m grateful that she had that blessing. But I would hope there’s more messaging for the rest of us.” The Republican party put at least a dozen
Linda Davidson/The Washington Post/Getty Images
white Stetsons of their delegation. Lee’s cowboy hat also bore a sticker: “Ron Paul 2012.” Both men were considering supporting the GOP by voting for Romney this fall, but Lee said: “The Republican Party just shot themselves in the foot.” It wasn’t just Paul supporters upset over the changes. Julie McCarty—a Santorum supporter and a Texas delegate—said the changes squelch grassroots voices like Tea Party activists. “Now we’re back at square one, trying to get the enthusiasm back up so we can go back out and campaign for Mitt Romney,” she says. That’s a problem the candidate could face among voters he’ll need in a tight election. “I’ll vote for him,” says McCarty. “But I don’t know how hard I’ll campaign for him.” A spreading the message: Mitt Romney supporter Jeff Goldmacher (right) plants a campaign sign in the yard of Luigi del Bagno in Poinciana, Florida.
Beyond the base
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Rice & Martinez: Mark Wilson/getty images • Fortuno, Love, Sandoval, Haley, Cruz, Rubio & Edmonds: J. Scott Applewhite/ap
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Rice & Martinez: Mark Wilson/getty images • Fortuno, Love, Sandoval, Haley, Cruz, Rubio & Edmonds: J. Scott Applewhite/ap
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individuals who have similarly contributed to the Arizonawomen in prominent speaking roles at the convention, and Alabama-type laws,” he said, referring to Kris Kobach, including the single former secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. who helped write many of the strict state immigration The speaker lineup was also peppered with ethnic laws and also contributed to the party’s platform on minorities—though the delegates were a sea of white faces. immigration. “I would advise the Republican party to distance Applause followed African-American Rep. Artur Davis, the itself,” he said. former Democrat turned Republican this year, wherever he One racist incident at the convention marred the party’s went at the convention. Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno, a close public campaign for minority voters when two white alternate friend of Romney, spoke. Mia Love, who will be the first delegates attending the convention threw peanuts at an African-American Republican woman in Congress if she wins African-American Patricia Carroll, a camerawoman working her race in Utah this year, was a favorite too. Govs. Brian for CNN, and told her, “This is what we feed animals.” Security Sandoval (Hispanic), Susan Martinez (Hispanic), and Nikki officers removed them, and the Romney campaign condemned Haley (Indian) all spoke. (Right now the Democrats have only the a ttendees’ one governor who is actions. an ethnic minority, But alongside Massachusetts Gov. such an incident Deval Patrick, while were powerful the Republicans tributes to the have four: Govs. c ivil-rights achieveBobby Jindal, ments within the Sandoval, Martinez, Republican party. and Haley.) “A little girl grows There were Rice up in Jim Crow (African-American); Birmingham,” said Senate candidate Rice, in a primetime Ted Cruz (Hispanic); speech to a rapt and Jane Edmonds convention (African-American audience. “Her and Romney’s parents can’t take secretary of workher to a movie force development). theater or a Then there was the restaurant—but current heartthrob they make her of the GOP: Florida believe that even Sen. Marco Rubio, though she can’t the son of Cuban have a hamburger immigrants. Alberto at the Woolworths Cardenas, the lunch counter, she Cuban-American can be president of head of the the United States if American she wanted to be. Conservative And she becomes Union, appeared minority reports: RNC speakers Condoleezza Rice; Luis Fortuno; Mia Love; Susan Martinez; the secretary of pleased with the Brian Sandoval; Nikki Haley; Ted Cruz; Marco Rubio; Jane Edmonds (from top left to bottom right) state.” scene. “The abunRice also said dance of riches,” he school vouchers or tuition tax credits for low-income, minority told me. The Katinas (an American Samoan band) grooved out families is “the civil-rights issue of our time,” to a thunderous on Wednesday. Bebe Winans and a gospel choir made the white standing ovation. Romney, in his speech accepting the audience sway on Thursday. nomination, also called for school choice for low-income Samuel Rodriguez, the evangelical head of the National parents, an issue that has slept undisturbed in the national Christian Hispanic Leadership Conference, delivered the Republican party for some time. benediction on the first night of the convention. Rodriguez’s advice to the party is to keep putting its minority “I’ve been following the Republicans and Democrats for a leaders out front: “It was strategically, from a marketing long time. Yesterday’s lineup was one of the most saturated standpoint, brilliant. I don’t think it’s going to increase the groups we’ve seen at a convention,” Rodriguez said the next numbers overnight, but it’s a great first step.” Cardenas also day. But from Rodriguez’s perspective, Republicans have to cautioned that the reach for diversity is a “process”—the make policy changes to draw in minority voters. “I am Republican Party might not see the fruits by this November. A concerned, very concerned, with the contribution of
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Getting personal Republicans hope to counter months of relentless attacks against Mitt Romney’s character by presenting their candidate as a likable family man
ast October while hosting a private meeting
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Her speech and Christie’s story played well, but they were performing in front of the home team. The real test will come inside the handful of battleground states that will determine the outcome of this fall’s presidential election. Will Romney be able to bond with voters there? “We need to make sure people understand who Mitt Romney is,” said Jim Rausch, a convention delegate from Derry, N.H. “He’s a kind, caring individual who protects his family and his business.”
Romney and President Obama are battling in
ultracompetitive states like Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Obama won all these states in . But, with the election two months away, neither candidate has a decided advantage in races that carry a combined of the electoral votes needed for a victory. The Obama campaign spent about million this summer attacking Romney. Democratic advertisements have depicted Romney as aloof, a felon, a tax cheat, and even compared him to a vampire. They released a video linking Romney to the death of a woman whose husband lost his job and health insurance because—the widower claims—of Bain Capital, the asset management firm Romney started. “If there is very little to be said concerning your accomplishments, you are only left to attack and otherwise ridicule your opponent,” said delegate Clarence Mingo, an African-American from New Albany, Ohio, “and that is what the president has done during this campaign.”
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with presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie saw a flash out of the corner of his eye. Christie turned in time to see his then -year-old son, Patrick, flying on his rollerblades toward Romney. Patrick came within two feet of Romney before hitting his brakes and stopping short. “How you doing?” Patrick asked Romney, who was visiting the Christie home to ask for Christie’s endorsement. Nonplussed, Romney ditched his pitch to Christie and began talking to Patrick about hockey. Soon Patrick’s younger sister, Bridget, bounced onto the scene doing somersaults, cartwheels, and handstands. Romney warned Bridget, , that those tricks might be dangerous on the hard floor of the patio where the two men were having lunch. Romney took Bridget by the hand and led her into the backyard grass where he helped her with her cartwheels and discussed her gymnastics class. Christie was left eating his sandwich. But as he watched the smile on his daughter’s face, he came to some conclusions about Romney. “I would apply to most politicians the child test,” Christie said while recounting the story at a joint breakfast with New Hampshire and Pennsylvania delegates during the Republican National Convention. “If they pass that test you know they’ve lived their lives in a way that family is central and that if family is central to them then your family is going to matter to them too. What I saw from Mitt Romney you can’t fake. Children don’t accept being faked with.” Christie’s story was just one of many told in Tampa by Republican leaders in the hopes of humanizing Romney in the wake of a barrage of hostile advertisements against the candidate. The effort to retell Romney’s narrative began when his wife, Ann, took the stage at the convention’s opening night. Framed by a collage of black-and-white family photos projected onto jumbo screens behind her, she chronicled a young marriage with humble beginnings: They lived in a basement apartment and “ate a lot of pasta and tuna fish.” A door propped up on sawhorses served as their desk. They used a fold-down ironing board in the kitchen for their dinner table. “A storybook marriage?” she asked. “No not at all. What Mitt Romney and I have is a real marriage.”
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The Democrats’ offensive has hurt Romney’s campaign: An ABC News/ Washington Post poll released Aug. 28 showed that 51 percent of voters view Romney unfavorably while 40 percent view him favorably. When asked which candidate was more likeable, 61 percent said Obama while just 27 percent said Romney—the lowest personal popularity of any nominee in almost 30 years. But while Obama outspent Romney by an almost 3-to-1 margin this summer, Romney will likely spend more this fall. His campaign had stockpiled about $177 million by the end of July, about $50 million more than Obama had on hand. The bulk of that money will be spent on TV ads, particularly in the battleground states, to help voters get more comfortable with Romney. Fueling optimism within the Romney camp are surveys like a recent Fox News poll showing that just 36 percent of independent voters approve of Obama’s job performance. “The one thing in our favor is we now have Obama with a four-year track record,” said Sonia Stopperich, a convention delegate
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connecting: Romney campaigning in Colorado Springs, Colo.; Ann at the RNC (opposite page).
from Canonsburg, Pa. “His hope and change were abstract. Now his policies are real.” Those policies, speakers reminded delegates in Tampa, include the $831 billion federal stimulus package—the largest one-time expenditure ever by the federal government—that failed to keep unemployment under 8 percent as Obama had promised. Obama the candidate called the nation’s $10 trillion national debt “unpatriotic” in 2008 but added $5 trillion in new debt in just one term—by far more than any other president in history. Led by the 2,000-plus pages of the new healthcare law, the Obama administration has imposed an average of 72 regulations on manufacturers each year. The number of major federal regulations expected to have an economic impact of more than $100 million has gone from 27 per year under President Bill Clinton to 44 per year under Obama. “We have to take these compelling truths to our neighbors and ask them, ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’” said delegate Jim MacEachern, of Derry, N.H. It’s a question the Romney campaign hopes will get asked thousands of times in every battleground state over the next two months. A
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Heading for a cliff Unless the House and the Senate can iron out their differences by the end of the year, a series of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts could bring the economy into recession by J.C. Derrick in Washington
ice presidential nominee Paul Ryan revved up the crowd with budget talk during his address at the Republican National Convention. The financial picture is dire, he said, but solutions are within reach: “These times demand the best of us— all of us, but we can do this. Together, we can do this.” Ryan’s optimism about the long term drew cheers from the crowd in Tampa, but the scene on Capitol Hill is much more grim about the short term. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted a “fiscal cliff” if Congress can’t come to agreement on key issues before automatic changes hit in January. To complicate matters, lawmakers are scheduled to work only eight days in September and five days in October as election season reaches its peak. The 2012 calendar closes out with eight days of work each in November and December. That gives lawmakers a total of 29 working days to solve issues with large implications. Here are some of the most pressing issues:
Budget sequester
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Part of last year’s debt ceiling negotiations— which culminated in the Budget Control Act of 2011—included a provision that would slash defense and non-defense spending by $1.2 trillion over 10 years. The deal was supposed to force policy makers to craft a strategic deficit reduction plan. If they don’t act, $110 billion in across-the-board cuts will take effect on Jan. 2, 2013. Both parties agree that massive, indiscriminate budget cuts are not the answer, but they disagree on how to stop them. Democrats say any agreement to avoid the sequester must include tax increases for high income earners. Ryan, who voted for the sequester last year, has said a Romney administration would retroactively undo the military portion of the cuts, which are disproportionately large because domestic programs like Social Security are exempted from the cuts.
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EXPIRING SOON: President Bush signs the 2001 tax cut (left); protesters rally to preserve the Postal Service.
final version of the bill whittled the breaks from 73 to 54—a victory, according to ranking member Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. But the $205 billion price tag means it will have a hard time passing the House.
Postal reform
The United States Postal Service announced a $5.2 billion loss for this year’s third quarter, pushing Congress to address long-debated legislation to help the embattled agency. The Postal Service has asked for permission to eliminate Saturday delivery and reduce yearly $5 billion health payments to future retirees. The Senate in April passed a bipartisan bill that would initially save six-day delivery with a number of other cost-cutting measures, but the House has yet to take up the legislation.
Farm Bill
Passed in 2001 and 2003, the tax relief package collectively known as the Bush tax cuts is set to expire at the end of the year. If the cuts are allowed to expire, tens of millions of Americans would have to pay about $1,300 to $5,700 in additional taxes. Republicans want to continue the cuts for all Americans, and the House passed a one-year extension with 19 Democrats joining the majority vote (256-171). Senate Democrats say they will not extend the cuts for families making more than $250,000 annually, or individuals making more than $200,000 annually.
Extenders package
A package of tax breaks known as “extenders” includes a continuation of the alternative minimum tax patch and deductions for specific causes ranging from NASCAR track construction to wind energy production. The bill passed the Senate Finance Committee by a 19-5 vote in August, but its road to getting through the full House or Senate will be tougher. Deficit hawk Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., says the package is simply an alternative form of spending and filed 61 amendments to either eliminate or limit many of the extensions. The
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Bush tax cuts
The House passed a bill aimed at providing livestock owners with drought relief before lawmakers left for a fiveweek recess in August. The Democrat-controlled Senate balked, however, saying it wouldn’t settle for less than a renewal of the 2008 Farm Bill. Vince Smith, an agriculture economist with the American Enterprise Institute, said the “elephant in the room” is that the Farm Bill is 80 percent food welfare programs, including food stamps. “The Senate isn’t going to vote for a bill with significant cuts to nutrition programs, and the House isn’t going to pass a bill without large cuts,” Smith said. The Farm Bill expiring Sept. 30 also includes $5 billion a year in “direct payments,” government subsidies paid to farmers whether they plant crops or not. Both parties agree direct payments need to go, but farm lobbies are pushing to replace them with a “shallow loss” program that would lock in high consumer food prices and cost taxpayers between $8 billion and $14 billion over the next five years, according to Smith’s estimates. Rep. James Lankford, R-Okla., told me the Senate must show a willingness to vote on difficult issues for any major problems to be solved. “When the Senate determined they would not take votes that would put members at risk, it stopped everything,” he said. After elections, some on Capitol Hill believe lawmakers may be in a deal-making mood during the lame duck session. If Congress cannot reach an agreement, the Bush tax cuts will expire, the mandatory cuts in the Budget Control Act of 2011 will take effect, and the CBO forecasts a 2013 recession with unemployment remaining above 8 percent. If the tax cuts are extended and the mandatory cuts not allowed, the CBO predicts a recession could be avoided, but the 2013 budget deficit would top $1 trillion for a fifth straight year. A
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A conference designed to help pastors and church leadership recognize, prevent and appropriately respond to abuse and minister to its victims. Discussion will include assessing the challenges facing the church as it responds to abuse, reviewing approaches to preventing abuse, and communicating with the church family and the media when abuse occurs within a family or within the church.
NOVEMBER 6–8, 2012 Hosted on the campus of Bob Jones University. For more information and to register, go to www.bju.edu/seminaryconference CREDIT
(12669) 8/12
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CHINESE MULTIPLICATION F
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was nothing left that anyone could do to him, he was fearless because he believed that God had called him.” Sun became a Christian at as Mao Zedong was forcing churches to join the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, where they would be placed under government control. Sun became part of the house church movement and soon came under the scrutiny of the government for his open Christian faith. While many Christians were giving in to pressure from the Communist government to renounce their faith during the Cultural Revolution, Sun held fast. He also wanted to find a woman who was willing to suffer for Christ. Through a friend he met Dorothy Chang, who was doing forced labor for refusing to renounce her Christian father and her faith. “Freddie looked so serious, he was geologist working with fossils and rocks, we joke that he looks like a fossil, with a lack of romantic mood,” Chang said. “I love him because he was a hero among the brothers and sisters, he would rather suffer for Christ and wait for a right sister in Christ.” Soon after they married, the government denounced Sun as a counter-revolutionary, set up a mass meeting where his co-workers publicly humiliated him, and sent him to do forced labor. He held tightly to Scripture, particularly Matthew :, said Chang: “You will be brought before kings and governors and you will be hated by all on account of My name.” He saw Dorothy a few times a year, even after she gave birth to twins. Six years later government officials arrested Sun for being a “rebellious and reactionary church leader.” Sun refused to give the names of the church leaders, so they sentenced him to years in prison. In his autobiography, The Man in the Fiery
JONATHAN SARUK/GETTY IMAGES
, Freddie Sun and his wife Dorothy have traveled more than , miles within China to help start and support Bible schools in every province. On Aug. , Sun, , director of the China Division of Christian Aid Mission, died of brain tumors. Through Sun’s work, Bible school graduates are leading thousands of house churches in China. Those churches, most unregistered with China’s communist government, face varying degrees of persecution: In some provinces government officials turn a blind eye to them, while in others they crack down, detaining pastors and confiscating property. Leaders can disappear in prison or “re-education through labor” camps. And as the house church movement—and the size of house churches—has grown, so has enforcement. Earlier this year, authorities ordered closed a ,-member house church in Sichuan province. In the past month, officials raided a Shaanxi church summer camp, beat a pastor in Inner Mongolia, and continued to harass members of Shouwang church in Beijing, which was evicted from its rented space last year. Christian Aid could not speak openly about Sun’s work while he FACING PERSECUTION: Members of the house was alive, but now friends and church Xin Mingling meet colleagues want to reveal its impact for Sunday service in of on the growth of Christianity in Beijing, China. China. “He was indomitable, he was hard-driven, athletic, and determined—extremely determined,” said Bill Bray, special projects coordinator of Christian Aid. “He had been persecuted so much that there SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
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PHOTO COURTESY OF CHRISTIAN AID MISSION
The legacy of Freddie Sun (-) is Bible schools that train leaders that grow house churches that reach across the country by Angela Lu
Furnace, Sun called this his “seminary” experience: “Instead of learning homiletics, hermeneutics, Greek, and Hebrew, I was being taught the greater lessons of obedience, submission, forgiveness, love, endurance, and patience.” With Mao’s death and the rise of Communist leader Deng Xiaoping, officials permitted appeals of some political prisoners. Sun appealed and officials released him with all of his charges dismissed after four and a half years in prison. The government gave him back his old job, and in 1980 the government also released Chang, who had been sentenced to 20 years of labor. She began working for the World Health Organization, which led to a position as a visiting scholar at the University of North Carolina. Dorothy moved to the United States, then brought Sun and their sons along. The Suns started working with Virginia-based Christian Aid in 1988, traveling to different Chinese house churches to find ministries that Christian Aid could support. Sun quickly found that the Chinese church’s greatest need was to train leaders. While the zeal for Christianity was rapidly spreading, church leaders needed solid theological foundations. So the Suns decided to connect resources from North American churches to fund and establish Bible schools—most of them unregistered. “You train one church leader, and he can train 200 to 300 more pastors or church leaders,” Chang said. “Sometimes [we can] produce many house churches through one trainee.”
Jonathan Saruk/Getty Images
Photo courtesy of Christian Aid Mission
fearless: Sun preaching at communion service in China.
According to Christian Aid, a total of 60,000 trained astors and 90,000 house churches have come out of the 155 p Bible institutes and missionary training centers the Suns have either supported or established themselves. Leaders and workers of the ministries and schools are all local Christians, and do not work directly with Westerners. While in the previous decades missionaries to China have come from the West, now missionaries are being trained and sent out from China.“The Chinese indigenous Christians are already mature and raised up under 62 years of persecution,” Chang said. “Now they carry the cross.” Christian Aid’s Bray said that while Sun was alive, the danger was so great that before every trip back to China, Sun would say “Well, this may be the last time I see you, I may be caught on this trip.” The work will continue within the network of ministries that the Suns have built. Chang said she will continue making trips to visit the Bible schools. The focus now is on adding to the depth of the existing Bible schools rather than expanding the number of schools. She hopes to add more advanced theological classes that reach the seminary level. Still, Chang believes their work is only one part of a larger picture: “We are just [messengers], we give all the love, prayer, financial help from throughout all the world … we just pass them to the right ministry,” Chang said. “We can’t take credit for what the indigenous people have done for the Lord, we did it together.” A S e p t e m b e r 2 2 , 2 0 1 2 W O R L D
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F attended public schools. Her father was superintendent of public schools in Michigan, and none of her friends homeschooled. So when she and her husband chose to homeschool, they were choosing a lonely road. Beth ran classes from the kitchen table and took their son Caleb on field trips, just the two of them. When Caleb was in fourth grade, everything changed: What had started as a solitary experience turned into a communal journey when Fleming discovered a local homeschool co-op. Once a week Caleb went to classes while Fleming met a new group of homeschool moms who helped her navigate the ins and outs of home education. Caleb is now entering the th grade and heading toward engineering. Co-ops have paid off for Fleming in more than one way: They’ve provided classes and social activities for Caleb, support for her, and more money in the bank account. This year she’ll spend about , on Caleb’s education, an investment that will earn him college credit since he’s old enough to dual enroll in a local community college. Compared to the average cost of tuition at three local private schools, Fleming will save about , annually, not including books. Homeschool co-ops provide an attractive option for homeschooling parents: By partnering to create classes and activities that supplement their children’s at-home curriculum, they combine the flexibility and privacy of traditional home education with the structure and socialization found in typical school settings. About one in five homeschool students participates in some form of curriculum support program like a co-op. T It’s hard to know how extensive co-op use is, partly because co-ops are so diverse. Some, like Upstate Homeschool Co-op in Taylors, S.C., are highly organized and able to serve hundreds of students with a full list of classes and extracurricular activities. Others are small and informal—sometimes a co-op forms when two parents trade skills and knowledge and teach each other’s children. Suzanne Brown had never heard of a co-op when she founded Upstate in . As a young homeschool mom of four toddlers, she recalled having to haul all of them across town for a preschool music class that she couldn’t afford. “I just sat there and thought: ‘I can do this with my friends.’” She pulled together five families and students. They met in Brown’s home. The younger children played while parents with strengths in particular topics taught the older children. Fifteen years later, that small group has turned into classes taught by teachers who serve more than students, including future engineer Caleb Fleming.
Julia Nelson, a homeschool mom of three in Montgomery Village, Md., has homeschooled for years. Her co-op started when she met Ruth Marchese, another homeschool mom at her daughter’s gymnastics studio. They discovered they both wanted to give their children an affordable and varied education while working around their daughters’ tight gymnastics schedules. They discovered they had different interests and areas of expertise, so they traded: Nelson teaches their children history and Spanish, while Marchese teaches piano and music theory. “It’s generally a good thing parents can outsource subjects they aren’t comfortable with,” Nelson said. Brown added, “A lot of parents don’t feel qualified or confident to teach high school. This hybrid schooling environment is ... giving them the structure to make that happen.” Outsourcing difficult topics is only one reason why parents use co-ops. Many want to expose their children to a different social environment and prepare them for a classroom setting. Florida native Pat Wesolowski designed her co-op years ago to prepare her children for college. “Most people are more afraid of public speaking than of dying,” she explained, so her co-op requires students to give oral reports at every meeting in front of parents and children: “We want to raise children who are not afraid to share what’s on their mind with others, whether in a small group or in front of a large audience.” Beth Darst, director of SEEK co-op in Cary, N.C., fears some homeschool parents overuse co-ops: They want their homeschool to look like regular school, and they pack their children’s schedules with O numerous co-op classes and activities. Darst thinks each homeschool should be customizable, family-based, and unique. Her own co-op, SEEK (Spiritually and Educationally Enhancing Knowledge), has parents coming for two hours, once a week. Students take classes while parents split their time between a support-group style Bible study and an hour of volunteer teaching. But co-ops also function as a portal to extracurricular activities. Celina Durgin, , now a sophomore at The King’s College, attended co-op classes her whole life. She and her friends played in the band, sang in the choir, and threw picnics and parties together. She learned to manage her own schedule, splitting school between home and weekly co-op classes, and traveling as a member of the debate team on weekends. She enjoyed the family-like environment with teachers and peers she trusted: “It’s harder for cliques to form, it’s more like a family … and it creates a culture of introspection and openness.” A
The ultimate hybrid Co-ops are quietly changing the homeschooling landscape
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communal journey: Students work together at an Upstate Homeschool Co-op class.
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1. The Sun Never Set 2. The Challenge to Spain in the New World 3. African Slavery and the West Indies 4. Imperial Beginnings in India 5. Clive and the Conquest of India 6. Wolfe and the Conquest of Canada 7. The Loss of the American Colonies 8. Exploring the Planet 9. Napoleon Challenges the Empire 10. The Other Side of the World 11. Abolition of the Slave Trade and Slavery 12. Early African Colonies 13. China and the Opium Wars 14. Britain—The Imperial Center 15. Ireland—The Tragic Relationship 16. India and the “Great Game” 17. Rebellion and Mutiny in India 18. How Canada Became a Nation 19. The Exploration and Settlement of Africa 20. Gold, Greed, and Geopolitics in Africa 21. The Empire in Literature 22. Economics and Theories of Empire 23. The British Empire Fights Imperial Germany 24. Versailles and Disillusionment 25. Ireland Divided 26. Cricket and the British Empire 27. British India between the World Wars 28. World War II—England Alone 29. World War II—The Pyrrhic Victory 30. Twilight of the Raj 31. Israel, Egypt, and the Suez Canal 32. The Decolonization of Africa 33. The White Dominions 34. Britain after the Empire 35. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature 36. Epitaph and Legacy
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LEFT: SEAN D. ELLIOT/THE DAY/AP • BETHESDA: SAM CRANSTON/GENESIS
Beyond the f
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e flow charts A ground-level look at charity clinics throughout the United States finds a thriving, but often ignored, subsection of American healthcare + by SUSAN OLASKY
LEFT: SEAN D. ELLIOT/THE DAY/AP • BETHESDA: SAM CRANSTON/GENESIS
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with reporting by Christina Darnell and Tiffany Owens
,-foot perspective, we at WORLD decided to do some E in a hospital emerground-level reporting on charity clinics around the country. gency room in Charlotte, N.C. In broken English he tried Five of our writers visited clinics in Washington state, to describe the chest pains he was experiencing. At that Michigan, Texas, North Carolina, and upstate New York. A time, the hospital didn’t have an interpreter. In frustrasixth took a road trip from New York City to Baltimore, tion the man went home and called his uncle, who Washington, Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans, Mobile, and spoke good English. The uncle drove to his nephew’s Atlanta, visiting clinics and talking to people in the house to take him back to the hospital, but found the neighborhoods around them. nephew dead of a massive heart attack. Together, we visited clinics—some Christian, some not, That man was and left behind a widow and young some government-funded, some dependent on charitable son. The tragedy was a turning point for Rusty Price, his donations—and by phone interviewed directors of dozens pastor at Camino Baptist Church. Price began seeing the more. Midway through the project our writers discussed over needs of the growing Hispanic population, and in his the phone what they were discovering. Four themes emerge, church opened up Betesda Centro de Salud (Bethesda Health and they shape the stories that follow: create networks of Center), a charity clinic with a largely Hispanic clientele. care, change patient behavior, recruit volunteers, and find That story points to a common pattern. Across the country, freedom from bureaucracy. in big cities, small towns, and rural areas, private citizens— The charitable work of Dan Heffernan, , founder of Hope often doctors—have banded together to set up charity clinics Clinic in Ypsilanti, Mich., exemplifies all four themes. Known to serve the working poor who don’t have insurance. by his staff as Dr. Dan, the trim, silver-haired physician has According to Julie Darnell, a public health researcher at the been providing care to poor people since the s when, University of Illinois at Chicago, about , charity clinics fresh out of medical school, he moved with his family to each year take care of nearly million patients. Her study Midland, Mich. Heffernan saw camps of migrant workers and included only those clinics that charge patients little or decided to help them get to nothing for visits, do not refuse church. Soon he saw their need treatment for those who cannot pay, for medical care, so he traveled to and do not bill patients. the camps with a nurse, carrying About percent of the clinics, bandages and antibiotics: “Once including some of the biggest, take they trusted me, there weren’t no government money. Many target enough hours in the day to see the working poor, those whose everyone.” employers don’t offer health Heffernan began holding a insurance. The clinics rely largely on weekly evening clinic at his volunteer doctors, nurses, and other office, starting at p.m. and medical professionals. Some are affilcontinuing “until we were done.” iated with hospitals and universities, Throughout the s he ran the others with churches and homeless PUBLIC HEALTH: Bethesda Health Center in Charlotte, clinic, which expanded with the shelters. About percent are reliN.C.; University of Connecticut medical student help of about volunteers. gious. Some are full-time, and others Abraham Aron checks the blood pressure of migrant Hospital administrators saw his are open only a few hours a week. farm worker Lloyd Davis at Markowski Farms in South dedication and agreed to take Since Washington policy-makers Windsor, Conn. (left). The program brings healthcare to migrant workers at farms around the state. care of his poor patients at no tend to focus on healthcare from a
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patient receives good treatment and learns to accept grace, while the doctors have the joy of giving. Such informality upsets those demanding neat organizational flow charts, but Heffernan said it is satisfying to see that patients “with serious medical conditions have specialists willing to see them and zip it right through.” The second theme that emerged from our research: Since lifestyles can contribute to illness, doctors who run patients through their offices as if they were machines needing a little oil are less effective than doctors who get to know their patients and talk with them about behavior. Many clinics have wellness programs that target diet and exercise. Heffernan still spends two afternoons a week at Hope Clinic, primarily reviewing records to make sure no one falls through the cracks, and he insists upon seeing smokers: “It’s crazy to give medication for their lungs and abdominal DENTAL CARE: Stacey Hank works on the teeth of Oscar Sanchez at Hope Dental Clinic in Ypsilanti, Mich.
pains when it’s caused by smoking, and they keep smoking.” He tells them, “We’ll lick this thing together.” A third theme: Charity clinics run on the work of volunteers, who seize the opportunity to take time with patients and personally help them. When Hope Clinic transformed from a Saturday-only clinic to one open during the week, Heffernan began volunteering two afternoons a week, giving up percent of his private practice salary in order to staff Hope Clinic in its early days. Thirty years later, he still comes in Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Five or six retired doctors also volunteer as often as every week, developing longterm relationships with patients “the old-fashioned way.” Heffernan says he has learned over the years not to ask doctors to volunteer too often. Hope has a regular Saturday morning rotation requiring doctors to work once every six weeks, and some doctors have done that since the clinic opened in . The limited commitment is doable, leaving doctors time for their practices and family without burning out. A fourth theme: Administrators at nearly every clinic spoke about the freedom to practice medicine without having to think about insurance or government reimbursements. They spoke of the damage government can do and the way it can transform into cash transactions what once emerged out of compassion. Heffernan saw that firsthand. He ran his free clinic in Midland for a decade. Then federal money became available, and two neighboring counties applied for grants to create clinics for migrant workers in their areas. Heffernan says, “They got a , grant to do what we were doing for nothing.” In this issue we’ll show how networks of care work and why many charitable doctors are concerned about Washington’s expanding role in healthcare. WORLD’s Oct. issue will have Part Two of our report, with an emphasis on why doctors volunteer and how they help patients change self-destructive behavior. Neither part is a systematic study similar to what engineers or economists might produce. We want readers to experience a little of what our writers experienced as they roamed the country. Our healthcare safety net can be understood best by immersion rather than through study of an organization chart. We were struck by the amazing assortment of clinics and helping networks, growing out of private initiative and generosity. Nancy Pelosi famously said, “We’ll have to pass the [Affordable Care Act] so that you can find out what is in it.” Our writers this summer found what’s in the existing charity clinic network, and were impressed. Can we preserve and expand it, or will we sing a line from an old Joni Mitchell song: “Don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”? A
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charge. Surgeons volunteered. Nurses and X-ray technicians told him, “Dan, if you’re seeing them for nothing, we’ll do it for nothing.” Heffernan learned that clinics need to function as part of a network of care. Hope is a big clinic that includes a well-outfitted dental clinic and social services, but sometimes patients need medical treatment beyond what the clinic offers. In those cases, the clinic partners with doctors from two local hospitals, relying on an informal network of physicians to provide that care. Here’s an example of how it works: Hope Clinic sends a poor patient with bleeding to a volunteer gastroenterologist, who finds cancer of the colon. The gastroenterologist calls an oncologist he knows who is willing to treat the cancer. The
ON THE ROAD by Tiffany Owens
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Many who lack insurance go to hospital emergency rooms when they fall ill. This tendency strains hospital staff and translates into poor service and frustrated patients. I walked to a local E.R. where one woman told me of waiting in pain there for more than hours. A few blocks later, I met Gregory Sims, a -year-old man waiting at a bus stop. He told his own story: incarceration, homelessness, and substance abuse. He said that bad choices and his own pride wrecked his health. A stranger discovered him in pain on the street and called the E.R. From there, he went to Christ House, a holistic rehabilitation program that restored him physically and spiritually. He looks well and now spends his time mentoring guys at Christ House. Sims summed it up well: “This is a stressful city to be poor.” He says the best places for care in the city for people with stories like his are the ones run by churches.
care: the hospital mostly, but only on an episodic basis. Sadly, lots of these guys haven’t been to a doctor in years. M-POWER staffer Bethany Rushing put it this way: “We try to teach patients that they can do more than survive, that God does not hate them, and that they can take charge of their lives and succeed.”
, , this summer, I visited medical clinics in a dozen cities, then walked the neighborhoods around the clinics. The first stop was small—Zarephath, N.J., N O I met Jack Hunter over miles from New York City, with a steaming plates of barbecue. He told me his downtown home to half a dozen Mexican and plan to open a charitable clinic in New Honduran restaurants. Pawn shops, public Orleans’ Ninth Ward, hardly touching his food notaries, and money transfer stores pepper because he was so excited: He wants to offer the street. holistic healthcare and spiritual counseling Like its city, Zarephath Health Clinic as well as a wellness center. (ZHC) isn’t physically impressive. Inside, Hunter is a lawyer, so running a clinic will Christian music streams from speakers on be a stretch—but he started to stretch when the front desk. Pale green walls display Hurricane Katrina hit seven years ago. He pieces of paper with Colossians : and his wife passed out sandwiches and handwritten in black and red sharpie: “And hosted children’s’ basketball games several let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. …” hours a week, but he wanted to do more. His Dr. John Eck, a tall man with a booming daughter in medical school recommended he voice and vintage bifocals, tries to foster that look at Christ Community Health Center in B, I visited M-POWER, a peace. His worn lab coat swings behind him Memphis, so he went to visit and came back Christian clinic that provides medical care as he strides from patient to patient, inspired to go and do likewise in New and help for people struggling to get out of listening and writing prescriptions quickly Orleans. They’ve secured the land and the poverty. Inside, the walls are covered with since he’s familiar with their histories and first doctor. If everything goes to plan, they’ll photographs of clients and thank-you notes needs. With one highly traumatized patient, open at the end of this year. pinned to a cork board. In the back a he provides medicine but also conversation, Wandering the Ninth Ward isn’t the community garden produces fruits and biblical advice, and prayer, spending well over vegetables for the clinic to give away. safest plan for a solo female journalist, so half an hour with him. Hunter put me in touch with Steven Euler—a Upstairs M-POWER offers GED prep classes Next stop: Baltimore, where doctors at tall, athletic man who will be the clinic’s first and job preparation workshops. Shepherd’s Clinic tell me their patients live Everything is volunteer-run, which is why full-time doctor. He lives in the Ninth Ward with a survival mentality. They must make and was willing to take me around the the clinic closes at noon on a Friday. In the rent. They must keep the lights on. They neighborhood. The streets bounce with a afternoon I walked over to a men’s shelter must not die young like many of their peers with a few people waiting outside. They were Caribbean energy: They’re potholed and have. Preventative healthcare easily falls to threatened by weeds, but the houses are eager to talk to a reporter. After interrogating the bottom rung. painted bright colors. me with half smiles about whether I was I saw the evidence while walking around Euler says he’s discovered a deep joy mixed-race, they told me where they get the neighborhood. Most of among the locals despite the houses are boarded up. poverty. He introduced me to Eviction notices hang on his neighbors, Joseph and windows. The streets are Charles. Later we met Caroline, empty except for lone teens an expressive woman and walking and an occasional double amputee, with a short speeding car. But doctors and afro that is dyed reddishnurses at Shepherd’s don’t orange. She handed me a glass give up. They work patiently of water and slowly lowered to change behavior: Their herself into a chair. For the healthy cooking classes and next hour, she told me one sad stress-lowering yoga classes story after another of poor are often full. medical care at the hands of In Washington, D.C., I seemingly uncaring doctors. stopped at a clinic, but it was She’s excited about the new empty, so I wandered outside clinic and before we left, and talked to a group of vets. grabbed my hand and insisted One man said the clinic was all on singing a spiritual together. right, but another complained How do we get more WORKING PATIENTLY: A yoga class at Shepherd’s Clinic in Baltimore. of long waits and bad care. Hunters and Eulers? A
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Networks of care Formal and informal groups of healthcare providers are keeping the poor from missing the safety net + by SUSAN OLASKY with reporting by Tiffany Owens and Christina Darnell
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in her hand, taking off her black Croc sandal and white sock. The callus on her heel is so hard it has worn a hole in the shoe. She could live with that, but up higher, on the fleshy part of her foot, sits a large, soft tissue growth. Every time she walks on it, pain shoots through her leg. Just walking to the bathroom is painful. Michelle Carr, a nurse at Shelter Health Services in Charlotte, tells Carol she has an appointment with a well-known dermatologist: “They agree to see you Thursday morning, but I need to know if you can make it. … If you take the appointment, but then don’t show up, they will never allow us to do this again.” Carol has lived with the growth for two years but found it difficult to work. Doctors were mystified and a podiatrist refused to work on it because he was afraid of making it worse. The homeless shelter clinic has worked to get her an appointment with the specialist, who agreed to charge only , which the clinic will pay. The appointment could change Carol’s life—if she shows up. She does. The morning of her appointment she calls to verify that she will see Dr. Libby Edwards at Mid-Charlotte Dermatology & Research. Edwards biopsies the growth and diagnoses a cyst. She refers Carol to Dr. Hazem El-Gamal from Charlotte Dermatology, who operates and removes the cyst, charging a co-pay, which the clinic pays. Carol can soon walk without pain. Carr summarizes the problem: “There has always been a safety net for the poor. They just don’t know how to access it. But we do, and we connect them.” Many charity clinics do the same: They provide primary and preventive care, and when a patient needs surgery, cancer treatment, or dialysis, they rely on formal and informal networks to provide those services. For example, Shepherd’s Clinic in Baltimore partners with Union Memorial Hospital (UMH) to provide care for people like Levan, , a mechanic with a heart condition that has put him in the hospital three times. FOOD NETWORK: When Levan recently had gall stones and lower back pain, Patti Price puts away he went to Shepherd’s rather than the Union Memorial food in the Food emergency room for treatment. Pantry at the Hope The partnership began when Dr. William Finney, retired Clinic in Ypsilanti, Mich. STEPHEN McGEE/GENESIS UMH chief of staff, became the clinic’s first volunteer
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P A began in Buncombe County, N.C., in (Asheville is the county seat). Project Access successfully recruited specialists and general doctors into a network to provide medical care to the uninsured. Specialists who volunteer through Project Access provide healthcare within their specialties, and the organization makes sure that patients get necessary lab work, X-rays, and follow-up care, including surgery and hospitalization. The Buncombe County Project Access today involves more than doctors, home healthcare groups, and local hospitals, providing care to , uninsured patients each year. The model is simple: Patients go to primary doctors or a charity or sliding scale clinic for a referral. Project Access screens patients to make sure they are county residents, have no insurance, and fit within income guidelines (currently percent of the federal poverty line). Project Access then refers patients to a specialist, who sees them in his own office. Since Buncombe County’s Project Access saw its first patients in , the model has spread to more than cities,
including Portland, Seattle, and Wichita, giving doctors across the country another avenue for volunteering. In some places, funding for administration comes from county government, foundations, or local medical societies. Other clinics also rely on informal doctor-to-doctor networks to secure treatment for patients. Uninsured people also need help getting affordable prescriptions. Pharmaceutical companies have programs to provide free and low-cost medications to uninsured people who earn less than percent of the federal poverty level, and receive tax benefits in return. The process varies from state to state. In North Carolina, MedAssistNC acts as a mail order pharmacy for the working poor: It receives free medications from drug companies and dispenses them to qualified individuals and clinics. The average client has three prescriptions, with help for diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease most common. Last year, MedAssist dispensed , medications worth million wholesale, with drug companies donating percent of that. Another example: Dispensary of Hope, founded in in Tennessee, now has network dispensaries in states and is licensed in more. This Nashville-based nonprofit has a Christian mission to provide medications to the indigent and uninsured. It receives donations from manufacturers and unexpired samples from , doctor’s offices. Dispensary of Hope then distributes the medications to its network of nonprofit clinic dispensaries and community pharmacies, which then give needy patients immediate short-term help. Dispensary of Hope also helps those patients enroll in long-
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PROJECT ACCESS: PAT SULLIVAN/AP • DISPENSARY OF HOPE: DIPTI VAIDYA/THE TENNESSEAN/AP
medical director and forged the reciprocal relationship. For more than years, the hospital emergency department has sent its non-emergency, uninsured patients to Shepherd’s for primary care. The clinic, in turn, refers patients to the hospital for diagnostic procedures, specialty consultations, and surgical procedures, which it performs as part of its charity care. Last year the clinic made more than , referrals back to the hospital.
PROJECT ACCESS: PAT SULLIVAN/AP • DISPENSARY OF HOPE: DIPTI VAIDYA/THE TENNESSEAN/AP
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opening a clinic: “I wish someone would have given me a manual … and a tutorial on effectively recruiting, retaining, and recognizing volunteers.” She couldn’t find a manual, but shortly after Grace opened, the clinic joined the Christian Community Health Fellowship (CCHF), which provides just that sort of help. CCHF, based in Memphis, Tenn., is a network of more than , medical professionals committed to serving Christ through medicine. Executive director Steve Noblett fields questions from churches like one in San Francisco that contacted him about providing charitable services in its neighborhood. Noblett connected the church with clinics in San Jose, Calif., and Gresham, Ore., and saw once again that doctors in the network “want to be used to help the next guy get started.” Noblett says CCHF is “more of a community than a trade association.” It helps clinMAKING CONNECTIONS: A man exits ics find and keep mission-minded doctors, the Project Access bus in Houston by providing training, fellowship, and technical (above); Raymell Goodwin, right, and her husband James pick up medication assistance. To doctors, he says, “When you go on with the help of social worker Jennifer vacation, ask if there is a Christian clinic in that Belue, left, from the Dispensary of area that works for the poor so that you can Hope at Saint Thomas Hospital in fellowship with them and see what happens there.” Nashville, Tenn. (left); Michelle Carr works with a patient at Shelter Health Many charity clinics are members of the Services in Charlotte (opposite page). National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics, which claims more than , members. Twenty state level and two regional associations also serve term prescription plans clinics. For example, charity clinics, many of them run by pharmaceutical faith-based, belong to the Georgia Free Clinic Network companies. (GFCN), and collectively provide million to million Other networks also in free care to Georgia’s . million uninsured citizens. are growing—and GFCN helped pass the “Health Share Volunteers in medical services are Medicine Act” that provides immunity from medical only part of a holistic outreach to the poor. Many clinics have malpractice suits for volunteer doctors and paid nurses in food pantries. In Charlotte, N.C., a bright blue sign identifies free clinics. GFCN also worked for a policy that allows doctors the Betesda Centro De Salud (Bethesda Health Center). to earn continuing education credits by volunteering at Located in a strip mall near an Auto Tune Total Car Care shop, charitable clinics: That allows volunteers to save money and the small clinic sees patients hours a week. It stocks its food fulfill educational requirements, and gives free clinics a pantry with donations, including some from local grocery source of quality labor. stores such as Compare Foods. Executive director Wendy Two other groups provide start-up guidance for clinics: Mateo-Pascual says being “patient-centric” means asking if Volunteers in Medicine (VIM) is a network of free clinics in patients have enough food: If not, the clinic connects them states, modeled on the first VIM clinic on Hilton Head with the food pantry, which partners with Loaves and Fishes. Island, S.C. ECHO, a Fort Worth, Texas, nonprofit, provides free consultants to churches and other organizations wanting need to set up clinics for the uninsured. their own network of care: Work in some clinics Sometimes the networks are not sufficient—and frustration serving the impoverished can be isolating. Sarah grows. Pam Snape, volunteer medical director of Greenville Defelice, a staffer at Jericho Road Family Practice Free Medical Clinic in Greenville, S.C., sometimes can’t get in Buffalo, N.Y., says she sometimes feels unable to patients the specialized treatment they need “because we don’t discuss her work with friends from suburban specialty have access. … We can’t send them somewhere free of charge.” clinics: “They have no idea what I am talking about.” We can tear down the networks of care and start from Two years ago Scarlett Stewart, involved in starting Grace scratch. Or, we can bulwark and expand them. A Medical Home in Orlando, Fla., struggled with the basics of
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“We are not homeless, so we listen to what is important to them.” With confident tones, Carr asks questions and jumps on teachable moments, but in the end she knows the client is responsible for her choices. In North Charlotte, Bethesda Health Center is nestled into a warehouse building. Double glass doors open into a small waiting room where women are chatting in hushed Spanish across the room. Copies of the newspaper Que Pasa Mi Gente lie on empty seats. Camino del Rey Baptist Church formed the clinic, which relies on a strong partnership network. Even with its pool of volunteers, executive director Wendy Mateo-Pascual often finds herself stepping in to fill gaps. On the day I visit, she is behind the reception window. “There are hard days, long days,” she says. “But our mission is to show God’s love to the people here through the services we provide.” The clinic focuses on long-term wellness through basic health services, exercise classes, and the help of a local food pantry.
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harlotte Community Health Clinic (CCHC), closer to South Charlotte, upends stereotypes about charity healthcare with its spacious waiting room and colorful décor. It is a one-stop medical facility, offering the volunteer services of many medical specialists. It leases its building from Presbyterian Healthcare for $1 a year and receives funding from Novant Healthcare, the Duke Endowment, and the United Way, among others. Similar to most charity clinics, CCHC accepts county residents who live at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level and are uninsured, although it sometimes accepts people a little above the official numbers. It recently added a
c hildren’s clinic in showing god’s love: response to rising health Bethesda Health needs: The most Center executive common are obesity, director Wendy depression, and anxiety Mateo-Pascual. issues, especially among children who are undocumented, uprooted from their homes, and worried as they watch their families struggle to survive. Professionally dressed volunteers in the administrative area offer warm smiles. Among them is Mary Guevara, a six-year volunteer interpreter now in school to become a physician assistant. Although CCHC is not a faith-based organization, many staffers spoke of God leading them into charity healthcare. In uptown Charlotte, Care Ring offers low-cost healthcare to the uninsured and underinsured who are above 200 percent of the federal poverty level, charging modest set fees. It also oversees Physician’s Reach Out, a community program connecting uninsured residents with doctors throughout the county. Doctors volunteer their time and see patients in their own offices. The federally funded C.W. Williams Community Health Center serves the most diverse clientele—uninsured, Medicaid/ Medicare clients, underinsured, insured, homeless, and undocumented immigrants. CEO Beverly A. Irby says, “We see everybody who comes through our doors. If you are undocumented, there is no fear that you can’t come here. We make it easy and comfortable.” Irby since 2007 has probably seen a 30% increase in applications for the sliding scale program, as people in the working middle class have become new additions to the uninsured. Her center joins others in focusing on prevention, disease management, and education, and in creating a circle of care with local hospitals.
Sam Cranston/Genesis
moved to Charlotte in 2007. The job market boomed. People moved there from around the country, energizing the city. The influx of new residents meant that local builders kept busy. Fast-forward to 2009, and the city told a different story. The recession hit Charlotte hard, and the nation’s second-largest banking city suffered massive layoffs. Home owners replaced “For Sale” signs with foreclosure notices. My husband got laid off from his job at a local residential builder. Within a year, the builder closed down altogether. When the builders shut down, so did framers, roofers, and landscapers. We found ourselves in a new normal, among droves of men and women—unemployed and uninsured. The recession diversified the face of the uninsured in Charlotte. From 2007 to 2009 the percentage of uninsured people in North Carolina grew more than in any other state. The unemployment rate in Charlotte has hovered about a point higher than the nation’s average since 2009. But charity healthcare groups in Charlotte have worked together to meet the increased demand for quality healthcare to the uninsured and underinsured, with each clinic striving to keep those in need from falling through the cracks. I began my visit to these clinics with Shelter Health Services, located on the outskirts of downtown. The small facility houses two exam rooms and two consultation rooms to service homeless women and children staying at the Salvation Army Center of Hope women’s shelter. Executive director Michael Sowyak says that in the past few years he has seen lawyers and accountants come through their doors, professionals transitioning to the receiving end of charity. When women arrive at Shelter Health Services for medical care, they look worn. A young woman walks into the exam room, her waist bulging with child, and nurse Michelle Carr asks about her history: not just her medical history, her personal history. With a southern drawl, the woman shares that her children are all in the care of different people. This will be her fourth child. “The most important thing is for the nurse to be a present, nonjudgmental presence in their life,” Carr told me earlier. WORLD September 22, 2012
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James Payne
Simple solution
Affordable healthcare is out there, and it doesn’t involve government or insurance
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While I was going through this introduction to gold-plated American medicine, I happened to talk with Wanda, an acquaintance who works in an unusual medical practice. She is office manager for a doctor—her husband—at a small, walk-in clinic that operates on a cash-only basis. “You mean you don’t take any insurance payments or government subsidies?” I asked. “How is it possible for you to survive?” “Well, you know, we’re not out to make a lot of money. We have a small house. We live modestly.” “So what do you charge?” “Our office visit is , and we use a sliding scale for other procedures,” she said. “Say a single mom comes in, and you know she can’t pay a charge. I ask her, ‘how much can you afford?’ The mom says, ‘,’ and then I say, ‘How about ?’” Wanda gave a cheerful laugh, “So everyone’s happy.” “How often do you adjust patients’ bills in this way?” I asked. “We do it with about half of them.” I was stunned. What an amazingly simple way to achieve affordable health care! In this arrangement, the doctor informally shifts the burden to wealthier patients (and to himself). It is one of many voluntary systems for making healthcare affordable, systems that include faith-based charity clinics and alternative medicine. Wanda mentioned that her husband pays , a year in medical liability insurance, and that gave me an idea: Exempt from the liability system those practitioners who don’t accept government subsidies or third-party payments. This measure would encourage low-cost, patient-oriented practices that emphasize personal responsibility, generosity, and common sense. Sadly, this kind of reasonable reform would be hated by the special interests who now control the system, the trial lawyers, big business, big medicine—and policy wonks convinced that more big government is the only way to fix the institutions they have broken. A —James Payne, author of Six Political Illusions, has taught political science at Yale, Wesleyan, Johns Hopkins, and Texas A&M
KREIG BARRIE
I ’ to a doctor lately, you’d better fasten your seat belt. American medicine has been undergoing a rapid transformation likely to shock those who still believe frugality is a virtue. My awakening came the other day when I went to the doctor to have removed a small sore on my leg that hadn’t healed. I assumed it would involve one quick office visit costing around . My first surprise was to find myself not in a doctor’s office, but in the suites of a regional dermatology firm that had at least five doctors and was headed up by a CEO. They were bemused at the counter when I told them I didn’t have insurance, declined to use Medicare, and intended to pay out of my own pocket. In the examining room, a doctor looked me over. The sore couldn’t be removed yet, he said. He had to take a biopsy. He injected a little anesthetic and took the biopsy. The receptionist handed me the bill: ,. All the joy instantly went out of my life. Back home, I took a close look at the bill and saw how each action had become an expensive, itemized procedure. When the doctor looked me over, he called it an “evaluation,” costing . Taking the biopsy involved three separate charges, of , , and , and so on. At the second visit, while waiting for my treatment, I asked the nurse, “Why couldn’t we remove all the tissue in one visit, instead of going through a biopsy?” I pointed out that I was paying for everything myself and wanted to keep costs down. “Medicare requires it,” she replied. “We can’t get reimbursed unless we can prove that we removed cancerous cells.” “But since I’m not on Medicare, couldn’t we have skipped that step?” She wasn’t sure that was possible. My conversation did bring a benefit. When the doctor came—a different one—the nurse explained to him that I was paying out of my own pocket, leading him to suggest a simpler surgical procedure, one that might involve a larger scar but cost less. I took the scar and the . Even with this reduction, my total bill for both visits came to ,.
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Calling the shots Independent Christian clinics may soon have to decide whether to accept government funding. Is the price of federal money too high? + by SUSAN OLASKY with reporting is by Kira Clark and Christina Darnell
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D. D K surveyed the medical landscape in Staten Island, N.Y., and noted a presence and an absence. Present: high rates of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and asthma. Absent: Christianity. Kim decided to open a clinic but knew he could not do so with private contributions. In he founded Beacon Christian Community Health Center, a nonprofit clinic he hoped would become a federally qualified health center (FQHC) and receive grants from Washington. The process of applying for nonprofit status under the state health department began with securing a site, an empty warehouse—but then Kim learned he could not renovate it until the health department received his plans and approved them, which took months. When the renovation was complete, the state had to sign off on it. The entire process took two years. During that time he housed the clinic in a temporary space above the local post office. Ill or elderly patients would say, “Dr. Kim, it’s really good to see you, but those steps. …” Next, Kim and his staff had to prove they could provide primary and preventative care, have a paid core staff, and maintain accessible hours. Kim waded through the extensive application process and overcame considerable political opposition. At one point a bureaucrat told him to join a different community health center where he would not be allowed to put his Christian beliefs into practice. Later, a New York health department staffer couldn’t even imagine how faith and medicine could work together. He called to ask, “Do you do exorcisms? Do you use holy water? Do you immerse people in it?” But Kim’s perseverance paid off, and Beacon became the first federal and state licensed faith-based clinic in New York state. Beacon is not the only explicitly Christian FQHC: so is
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Lawndale in Chicago, Esperanza in Philadelphia, and Christ Community in Memphis. They serve in poor, medically underserved areas, which is one requirement for becoming an FQHC. Federal grants help these clinics provide care to the uninsured, and higher Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements make it economically feasible to care for the poor. Kim says the grants “are a bit of a bureaucratic nightmare. If there is something we can fund with patient revenue, we do so to avoid tight regulation.” In return for a steady funding stream, FQHCs must offer comprehensive medical care, including mental health and substance abuse treatment. They must report statistics about patients and procedures: Doctors generally see - patients per day. Clinic patients must form a majority of an FQHC’s governing board. (The Beacon board includes a Sri Lankan, a Nigerian, a firefighter, and a retired church secretary: Kim and his staff joke that they have the diversity of the entire UN sitting in their waiting room.) About , FQHCs exist nationwide. Since each one can have multiple locations, that means about , total sites.
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speak often about the joy of practicing medicine without worrying about paperwork and complicated billing codes for Medicaid and insurance reimbursements. They bemoan the business of medicine, which results in doctors having to EXPLICITLY CHRISTIAN: deal with many different Dr. Kim with a patient at insurance companies, each Beacon Christian with its own rules, and with Community Health Center. NAJLAH FEANNY/GENESIS government directives.
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Many Christian clinics, like Bethesda in Tyler, Texas, maintain their freedom by relying entirely on private funds. Executive director John English says, “As a Christian clinic we didn’t want to have anything that would limit what we do. We didn’t want to be dependent on any one resource.” Bethesda relies on support from churches, individuals, and foundations, as well as a small patient co-pay, to meet its annual . million budget. Pat White, executive director of the West Virginia Health Right clinic, expressed bluntly the view of many charity clinic supporters: “I don’t like jumping through hoops.” She sees charity clinics as bottom-up organizations, while FQHCs are “very top-down.” She says the doctors and dentists who volunteer at her clinic don’t like Medicaid: “They fight Medicaid in their private practice. They don’t want to do it when they volunteer.” She gives an example of how her clinic works: “This afternoon we have a cardiologist. He’ll see patients that other doctors have referred. We don’t have to get any Medicaid approvals. We just schedule them. It’s a different practice type: patient-focused rather than payment-focused.” Charity clinics don’t have billing systems. They either suggest nominal fees or accept donations—but they don’t bill patients who can’t pay. It’s an honor system. White says patients appreciate the doctors who volunteer, and the doctors enjoy having patients say, “Thank you.” She says many “impoverished people on Medicaid have to jump through so many hoops, they feel I’m entitled. …”
“[Grants] are a bit of a bureaucratic nightmare. If there is something we can fund with patient revenue, we do so to avoid tight regulation.”
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become FQHCs because they struggle to recruit enough volunteer staff. Dator also serves as executive director of a large free clinic in Doylestown: “The clinic I work with partners with a hospital, so we have an overabundance of volunteers. That’s not true even half an hour north.” Even if they wanted to become FQHCs, she says, some free clinics might not be located in areas that qualify as underserved: “There are poor people all over, but we just aren’t poor enough.” John Mills is managing director of Empowering Community Healthcare Outreach (ECHO), an organization that helps churches and other nonprofits to open medical clinics for the poor. Since , the Fort Worth–based nonprofit has helped plan or open medical clinics around the country, sending consultants to work at no charge with interested people in rural and urban communities. Mills says even if a charity clinic wants to become an FQHC, funding isn’t likely to be available: “It’s still going to be really competitive. … Extremely unlikely that you are going to be funded. The money will be going to expansion of existing clinic sites.” He sees FQHC paperwork as onerous— “Doing the basic reporting for Medicaid requires a staff to do just that”—and a major downside for doctors who want to practice medicine without having to think about the federal middleman.
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for charity clinics: What will be the effect of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”)? The law gives much more money to FQHCs, causing some free clinics to rethink their mission. Should they become FQHCs or remain as they are? As Pat White put it, “Do we morph into something else? Or stay true to our mission?” Michael Sowyak, executive director of Shelter Health Services in Charlotte, decided he does not want to change to a business model by chasing Medicaid reimbursements: “If we did that, we wouldn’t be able to take minutes for someone who needs extra help. … It would be to minutes per person, get them in and out, to maximize revenue. … They need more than just coming and getting a prescription. They need to have their hand held. They need to be shown respect.” Peggy Dator, president of the Free Clinic Association of Pennsylvania, says some clinics in her network might try to
– D R . D AV I D K I M
GOOD CARE: Patients wait at Camillus Health Concern in Miami. Camillus is a Christian FQHC that provides healthcare to the homeless and poor.
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P, executive director of Esperanza Health Center in Philadelphia, says her clinic, which serves a mostly Hispanic population, became an FQHC in . She says government grants for the uninsured and government malpractice insurance help her clinic provide good care. She says what Esperanza wants the government has wanted: / accessibility, comprehensive care for the whole person, and integrated social services. She even sees an upside to the detailed end-of-year reports the government demands, calling them management tools: “Those are the kinds of things I ought to be doing.” Esperanza’s leaders did not want to risk the clinic’s explicitly Christian personality, so they highlighted the clinic’s Christian mission in their application—and so far, Post says, government money has not changed the mission or its expression. Clinic staffers “offer prayer a lot.” Most patients want staff members to pray with them because they “want the Lord in their lives.” But Post is aware of recent government actions that threaten freedom of conscience: “We’d rather walk away than change the way we practice,” she says, but doing so would “be hard … a very difficult thing.” And there’s the danger. If Congress overturns the Hyde and Weldon Amendments, which guarantee that FQHCs don’t
have to perform or refer for abortion, Christian clinics will be in trouble. The same goes if Congress or an administration acts to prevent FQHCs from hiring people who share their mission. For example, FQHC groups have to tell patients where they can obtain contraceptives, but they don’t have to provide contraceptive services themselves. That could change—and as Post acknowledges, walking away from the money would be hard. Of course, these days even privately funded charity clinics have to navigate tricky waters to provide healthcare for the poor. Diane Steward of Puget Sound Christian Clinic notes some of the hurdles: “We’ve talked with lawyers, insurance agents, pastors and church administrators, negotiating agreements to use space in several churches and nonprofits and provide healthcare together. ... We called city licensing departments in several different communities to ensure we are meeting all legal and licensing requirements in each community.” But at the end of the day, private charity clinics answer only to their patients and funders—not to bureaucrats or legislators who have become increasingly hostile to religious expression: Just ask Catholic Social Services in Boston whether it’s still able to provide adoption and foster care services. A
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Notebook
Lifestyle > Technology > Science > Houses of God > Sports > Money > Religion
Runway platform Ministry uses fashion to focus spotlight on sex trafficking
ELITE TJIE/ELITE ON EARTH PHOTOGRAPHY
BY SOPHIA LEE in Los Angeles
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W listing depressing statistics about sex trafficking, and it will most likely end up in the trash. But blow out a full head of curls and strut in breezy satin, and heads will turn. That’s the simple theory behind Freedom and Fashion (FnF), which operates out of an office in Little Tokyo here: Why not spread awareness of sex trafficking by speaking the language of fashion? The -member team works alongside other nonprofit organizations like CAST and Not for Sale to fight the sexual exploitation of women and children. But the team also debates the latest handbags and fall styles—all while rocking pink shorts or spunky belts. FnF serves as a bridge between human-rights organizations and the public. During FnF’s annual fashion show, a local DJ blasts music as models strut the runway before ,-plus onlookers, and guest speakers along with video clips provide information about human trafficking. FnF also blogs and publishes a glossy fashion magazine each year, splashed with beautiful graphics of rain boots and dresses. The magazine could pass for any other fashion publication, except the text profiles human-rights-conscious designers and projects. FnF is also novel because its explicit goal is “to render Christian service and share the message of Jesus.” (The website notes that “learning about the Christian faith is a voluntary exercise.”) A weekly staff meeting this summer featured a mountain of spaghetti and a pot of tomato sauce, but it started with prayer. Human resources manager Chris Baltodono, a dapper -yearold dressed in navy ankle-length slacks and boat shoes, talked about the ROLE prevalence of sexual addiction in MODEL: society—even churches. He A FnF explained that the roots of it are fashion trauma, dysfunctional families, show. SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
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Notebook > Lifestyle and an addictive society, and the solution is Christ. He said, “I, too, come from a dysfunctional family.” FnF CEO Bonnie Kim, who has been both victim and
because they were basic human desires that Kim had always taken for granted. After she returned home to Los Angeles, Kim couldn’t get two words off her mind:
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Freedom. Fashion. In early 2009, she built those words into a brick-and-mortar organization made up of a “house of insane people” who don’t get paid for their work. Baltodono has volunteered for three years: “I love that it’s an organization that is so faith-based, yet at the same time relatable to the secular sector. … We don’t just preach the gospel, we live it out through our service and ethics.” With the FBI listing Los Angeles as the top humantrafficking hotspot in the United States, volunteer Jenny Kim says she likes “having a direct, local impact. … It wakes people in a different way to realize that [sex trafficking] happens here in our backyard.” Diana Lee, who helps style the models for photo shoots, adds, “There’s meaning behind this. You’re giving back at the same time while doing something you love. It’s the best of both worlds.” A
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perpetrator, sets the tone for her organization. Molested at a young age and then addicted to pornography, Kim says she lived like a “Koreatown gangster girl,” with her mind “exposed to all the perversities of the world.” At 21, she drove a Mercedes-Benz and flashed an unlimited American Express card. But God used her volunteer work with NightLight, an organization that fights human trafficking and sex exploitation in Bangkok, to show her that she “was glorifying sex in that American subtle way.” After meeting the unglamorous, unsexy “stars” of the porn and sex industry, Kim could no longer detach herself from her indirect contribution to their exploitation. She asked each of the sex workers a simple question: “What do you most want?” The answers—craving a college education, longing to start a business, desiring a family—“tore [her] heart”
Jay Delancy still remembers the first time he voted. He was 18. Fresh out of the ballot booth, he called his mother: “Mama, I voted today for Carter and Kennedy!” His mother, who would later hang a John F. Kennedy portrait next to that of Jesus in the family room, had also voted. Now a 55-year-old retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, Delancy still values his vote—so much that he is spending his days and dollars as executive director of Voter Integrity Project (VIP), a nonprofit organization that combats voter fraud. Growing up in a politically charged family of hard-core liberals, Delancy had always been obsessed about the way politics worked. He can list all his votes, but he remembers best the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. As he sat with a “knot” in his stomach next to fellow officers, watching the Florida recount controversy on TV, Delancy felt a sudden powerlessness: “This is not a nation of law, but of lawyers.” That was when Delancy started paying more attention to news stories about voter fraud nationwide, but “you start turning over rocks, and you don’t like what you see.” Now a conservative, Delancy said it upset him to see strange electoral results in a county, only to have the losing candidates derailed as “sore losers” when they claimed voter fraud. Nobody was investigating these cases, so he decided to be that person. If VIP is Delancy’s combat team, then it’s at its recruitment stages right now. Delancy modeled VIP as a large project after other citizen-initiated, anti-voter fraud groups such as True the Vote, but VIP targets only local voter fraud in North Carolina. It operates with three-person teams and has three goals: Train ordinary citizens to patrol ballot booths, gather data that exposes voter fraud, and change the legislative process on the electoral system. Delancy compares ballot booths to the walls of Jerusalem in Nehemiah’s time and says, “If we lose this wall, I shudder to think what will happen next.” Although staunchly conservative, Delancy insisted voter fraud isn’t a partisan issue, but a constitutional one: “If we don’t protect our votes, we lose the Constitution. We lose the country. Twenty years later, your kids or grandkids will wonder what was going through your head not to fight this.” —S.L.
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Notebook > Technology
Text intrusion
Services bypass parents to answer teen queries about sexuality and contraception BY DANIEL JAMES DEVINE
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I’ that organizations like Planned Parenthood give teenage girls pro-abortion counsel at their clinics: Now they’re texting it for free to their mobile phones. Texting has
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Banning panic
When an estimated , members of an ethnic minority group in India fled Mumbai, Bangalore, and other cities in August because of anonymous threats on social media and mobile phones, they were probably overreacting. But the Indian government overreacted too, by issuing a 15-day ban on bulk text messages in an attempt to avert panic. The rumors had a ring of truth: Clashes between Muslims and an indigenous tribe in the northeast corner of India have left more than 75 dead and displaced 300,000. Indians from the region who have migrated southwest have distinguishable facial features, and when they received word on their mobiles that their Muslim neighbors planned to attack them after Ramadan, they panicked, jamming train stations in a mass exodus. Government officials said the threats were groundless rumors. To squelch them, they ordered mobile service providers to prohibit messages sent to more than five people at a time. But stifling free speech is hardly the way to calm fears, said Indian critics. “Banning communication systems in such a critical time can worsen the law-and-order situation rather than [improve] it,” wrote the Internet and Mobile Association of India. Some mobile users circumvented the ban with apps like Nimbuzz, which provides internet-based texting. —D.J.D. FLIGHT: Railway station crowded with people evacuating India’s northeastern states (top); threatening text message (left).
TEXTING: ISTOCK • RAIL STATION: ANUPAM NATH/AP • THREATENING TEXT: MANJUNATH KIRAN/GETTY IMAGES
emerged as a way for teens to ask anonymous questions about their private lives. A texting program called “In Case You’re Curious” that Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains piloted in Denver in and relaunched last year promises to answer any question related to sexual health within hours—in characters or less. Currently, the program fields to questions each month, but administrators plan to expand it geographically. In the meantime, they’re dispensing classic Planned Parenthood advice for avoiding sexually transmitted diseases (use a condom) and avoiding
pregnancy when condoms fail (get “emergency” contraceptive Plan B). Between September and August , Planned Parenthood representatives hosted , Q-and-A conversations by text message—in addition to about , conversations in computer chat format. Most queries came from young women, and one-quarter from teens. The most common topics were abortion, emergency contraception, and pregnancy testing. A North Carolina–based text message program called BrdsNBz targets youth between the ages of and . The Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina launched it in and later expanded it to Texas, South Carolina, and Maryland. “Health educators” offer “nonjudgmental” advice and information about dating, puberty, anatomy, slang terms, and birth control. In a study this year of , text messages between February and March , the program’s most common questions (one-third of the total) were about sexual acts. The program, in its advertising, doesn’t hide its desire to come between teens and their parents: “We can answer questions that are sometimes tough for teens to ask parents.”
Email: ddevine@worldmag.com
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Notebook > Science
SCIENCE COURT
Feds hand out millions of dollars for climate change research with poor oversight BY DANIEL JAMES DEVINE
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A U.S. S D branch that dispensed million for climate change programs between and has a serious accountability problem. The department’s inspector general examined a million sampling of grants awarded by the cumbersomely named Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. Bureau officials often doled out millions for climate change mitigation programs in India, California, and elsewhere without performing inspections or asking for spending reports, the inspector general found. A grant recipient in Hyderabad, India, for example, received .
million without ever submitting required financial reports. Although the Bureau of Oceans’ budget has decreased since , overall Obama administration funding for international climate change efforts has increased, though various agencies, due to commitments made during United Nations negotiations. Another trouble spot involves interagency agreements, in which one branch of government carries out work on behalf of another. Heavy administrative fees and a lack of oversight at the Bureau of Oceans suggest such agreements may be poorly supervised throughout the entire State Department, said the inspector general in a -page report.
Cancer scientist Elizabeth Iorns may have come up with a cure for lousy research and fraud. Through the research clearinghouse she co-founded last year, Science Exchange—which arranges for labs to conduct experiments for hire—Iorns has launched the “Reproducibility Initiative.” The program invites researchers to have their work reproduced by a second, independent lab for a reasonable fee. If the second lab gets the same results as the first, the original scientist (or team of scientists) gets a certificate showing the work was double-checked. Science publishing giants Nature and PLOS One have endorsed the Reproducibility Initiative, hoping it will improve the trustworthiness of published scientific findings: Surveys show that about percent of scientists admit to fudging data in their papers. Many published experiments later prove not reproducible. —D.J.D.
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Judges go easier—slightly—on defendants who plead a genetic disposition to crime, according to Science magazine. Researchers presented state judges with a hypothetical case of a male psychopath who had committed battery. They told half the judges that a doctor testified the psychopath had inherited a gene associated with violent behavior. On average, those who heard the additional testimony lightened the fictional defendant’s sentence by a year—a percent reduction.
SCIENTIFIC LAB: DARREN HAUCK/GETTY IMAGE • IORNS: HANDOUT • ALL OTHER PHOTOS: ISTOCK
Checking it out
A federal appeals court struck down a major EPA rule intended to reduce air pollution that travels across state lines. The CrossState Air Pollution Rule would have implemented a pollution credit trading system to reduce sulfur dioxide and other pollutants from smokestacks in upwind states, but the court said the system violated federal law. The EPA could spend several years rewriting the rule.
Biotechnology companies can continue claiming patents on portions of DNA they isolate and study. In the latest ruling in a three-year dispute over “gene patents,” a federal appeals court upheld the right of Myriad Genetics to patent human BRCA and BRCA genes, two markers for breast and ovarian cancers. That gives Myriad a monopoly on diagnostic tests for the genes. The plaintiffs said DNA should not be subject to patents. —D.J.D.
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No strings attached
scientific lab: Darren Hauck/Getty Image • iorns: handout • all other photos: istock
Ingo Wagner/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom
Notebook > Houses of God
The central nave of the Rysum Evangelical Reformed Church, with the church’s 555-year-old Gothic organ, in Rysum, Germany. The organ, built in 1457 by Meister Harmannus in the Dutch town of Groningen, is one of the oldest of its kind in the world and remains playable.
S e p t e m b e r 2 2 , 2 0 1 2 W O R L D
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Notebook > Sports Anti-Doping Agency seemed determined to prove its case against Armstrong beyond a reasonable doubt—and with more than a few smoking guns. Though he insists he is innocent, Armstrong will not resist the USADA’s findings and attending penalties. These include being banned for life from cycling and stripped of all prizes and titles accumulated since . Will the world’s most famous cyclist slip The action through public shame unscathed? delivers a crushing blow to the BY MARK BERGIN already deeply damaged image of cycling. But what of Armstrong’s reputation? His story of F of evidence more overcoming testicular cancer en route daunting than the French Alps, to unprecedented athletic achievement cyclist Lance Armstrong elected has provided hope to millions of cancer not to fight. Allegations that he patients. His foundation has raised more used banned substances and than million for cancer research, blood-doping techniques to win seven much of that through the sale of milTour de France titles are nothing new. lion yellow “Livestrong” bracelets. And But this time around, the United States
Lancing blow
>>
his brand is widely disseminated through endorsement deals with Nike, Oakley, and Anheuser-Busch among others. At least so far, the USADA’s action looks to be having little impact on Armstrong’s public image. Nike, Oakley, and Anheuser-Busch are standing by their man. The Lance Armstrong Foundation reported a percent spike in donations. And well-respected voices from the athletic community the world over are coming to his defense. ESPN columnist Rick Reilly wrote that he doesn’t care whether Armstrong “cheated in a sport where cheating is as common as eating.” Reilly wants “to thank him for everything he’s done since he cheated.” India’s star cricketer Yuvraj Singh, himself a cancer survivor, says Armstrong will always be his hero. Newsweek writer Buzz Bissinger wrote, “He is a hero, one of the few we have left in a country virtually bereft of them. And he needs to remain one.” Such insistence seems intent to overlook Armstrong’s failings. He left his wife in and began dating singer Sheryl Crow only weeks later. Fellow cyclists report brazen arrogance and narcissism that manifested in anger or verbal assaults. He now charges , for speaking appearances to speak on the virtues of never quitting. He is an athletic specimen, a great cyclist, and a talented self-promoter. But his life is a testament to where a win-at-all-costs ethic leads.
The class of rookie NFL quarterbacks could prove the best ever. And that’s saying something. In , future Hall-of-Famers John Elway, Dan Marino, and Jim Kelly entered the league along with Ken O’Brien, who would make two Pro Bowls in his lengthy career. But in , only Elway entered the season as his team’s starter. In , five rookie quarterbacks climbed to the top of the depth chart for their teams’ openers, two of those carrying Hall-of-Fame-sized expectations. No one doubted that Andrew Luck of the Colts and Robert Griffin III of the Redskins would be named starters when they were drafted with the first two overall picks back in April. Ryan Tannehill of the Dolphins and Brandon Weeden of the Browns also were expected to at least challenge for starting spots, which they did successfully. Russell Wilson of the Seahawks surprised the league and his own coaches by outplaying free agent acquisition Matt Flynn to claim the starter role. Add in the five quarterbacks from the class who achieved starter status this season, and the NFL features first- or second-year players at of its quarterback positions. Either the league is witnessing a burst in talent or the gap between the college and pro games is shrinking. —M.B.
WORLD
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SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
ARMSTRONG: CHRIS GRAYTHEN/GETTY IMAGES • LUCK: JOE ROBBINS/GETTY IMAGES
YOUNG GUNS
Email: mbergin@worldmag.com
8/31/12 3:15 PM
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Armstrong: Chris Graythen/getty images • luck: Joe Robbins/getty images
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Most people believe that Fitness is the same as Health. That is not so. Fitness is the ability to produce energy with muscles, win Gold medals, create a good looking body with a flat stomach and muscular limbs. Health is the absence of illness and does not produce the impressive good looking bodies that Fitness does. Health requires a generous increase of www.PlasmaCirculation.com through all the cell tissues of the body for just a couple of minutes per day. Cardiovascular exercise will create this extra Plasma Circulation that promotes health and a stronger immune system and slows the aging process. Extreme Fitness that results in very impressive looking bodies will increase the flow of blood through muscles and that diverts blood flow
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away from all the rest of the cell tissues in the body. Extreme fitness is harmful to health by decreasing Plasma Circulation to the vital organs and the brain, makes for a less strong immune system and faster aging. This is the reason why many extremely fit people develop serious health problems and do not live very long. On a regular basis the news media report on very fit people that died and we don’t understand because they were known to be so fit. Yes, they were too fit for health and longevity. For everything in life there is a “Too little” a “Too much” and a “Just right” also referred to as “Moderation. Our ROM360 4 minute machine gives you a fitness score at the end of the 4 minute exercise that shows your progress in fitness and also shows you when your fitness is getting too high when you should decrease your effort and do the 4 minutes in more moderation. Remember that fitness to a certain level is desirable, but beyond such level will impair health. Read more about Fitness and Health at www.PlasmaCirculation.com The importance of www.PlasmaCirculation.com
Vigorous blood circulation to all the parts of the body is needed to maintain health, to slow the aging process and to prevent and cure illness. Many farmers and people that had physical occupations a few generations ago used to live to 95 and even over 100 years old because they did the kind of physical work that gave them the right type of “exercise” that creates generous blood circulation through all the capillaries in the body. There are also wrong types of exercise that increase the blood circulation in muscles resulting in a decrease of blood circulation to all other cell tissues in the body. Steel workers and dock workers got the wrong type of exercise that increased blood circulation on a permanent basis in their muscles at the expense of plasma circulation to vital organs and all other cell tissues in their body, resulting in more illness and faster aging.
8/31/12 3:24 PM
Notebook > Money
Untimely disclosure
Will Bain Capital’s links to Stericycle hurt Mitt Romney with pro-life voters? BY WARREN COLE SMITH
>>
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SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
YUN JAI-HYOUNG/AP
of the Salt Lake City Olympic S . effort. Among them: Stericycle is a . However, that SEC filing lists Romney billion company that performs a as “sole shareholder, Chairman, Chief vital service. It is the largest Executive Officer and President” of Bain medical waste disposal company in the Capital and at least three Bain-related country. Among its customers are some entities investing in Stericycle. The docof the nation’s top healthcare providers. ument also says Romney has “voting But it has other, less reputable clients, and dispositive power” of the more including Planned Parenthood, the than million Stericycle shares “in his largest abortion provider in the country. capacity as sole shareholder” of Bain Also not in dispute: Bain Capital, a and its affiliates. company founded by GOP presidential A news report and a state nominee Mitt Romney, was a significant document also indicate that Romney investor in the company. According to a remained involved at Bain. The Boston Securities and Exchange Commission Herald reported in , “Romney said (SEC) filing in November , a group he will stay on as a part-timer with that included Bain invested million Bain, providing input on investment in Stericycle. This investment gave Bain and key personnel decisions.” percent ownership of the company’s Massachusetts state disclosure forms stock, making it the largest shareholder. in and list Romney as In , the investment group sold Bain’s percent owner. A percent of its stake in Stericycle for Washington Post article quoted Bain about million. Bain and its partners lawyer R. Bradford Malt saying sold the rest of its holdings in , with total profits exceeding million. But questions remain. Was Governor Romney involved in Bain at the time of the transactions? If he was, did he know about Stericycle’s involvement in INVESTOR the abortion industry? The Romney campaign says the answer to CEO the first question is no. Romney says he left the day-to-day management of Boston-based Bain in February — about nine months before Bain filed SEC documents in the Stericycle transaction—to take the helm
Romney took a “leave of absence” from Bain but retained ownership for two more years. But what about the second question: Did Romney know about Stericycle’s involvement in the abortion industry? Liberal Mother Jones reported that in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Stericycle’s Arkansas operation for safety violations. Among the violations: keeping “body parts, fetuses, and dead experimental animals in unmarked storage containers.” Bain’s interest in Stericycle came eight years later, and it should have discovered the abortion involvement during due-diligence research. If it did, and if Romney did participate in the decision to invest in Stericycle, he might still have favored the investment: Steven Ertelt, editor of the leading pro-life news website LifeNews.com, acknowledges that Romney was then “pro-choice,” but notes that Romney has since “converted to the pro-life position on abortion.” Most pro-life organizations have remained silent on the past BainStericycle tie. Some, such as the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, actively support Romney. (Repeated calls to a number of pro-life organizations, Stericycle, and the Romney campaign all went unreturned.) Michael Marcavage, spokesman for an ad hoc group, the Campaign to Stop Stericycle, says pro-life groups CLIENT are silent because “they’re afraid of another four years of Obama’s radically pro-abortion ideology.” But Ertelt of LifeNews. com sees efforts of the Campaign and other groups as attempts to “sow seeds of doubt and distrust.” A Email: wsmith@worldmag.com
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Notebook > Religion
Cutting in
German officials enter religious sphere, prosecute rabbi over circumcision BY THOMAS KIDD
>>
AFTER BELL After months of uncertainty following the departure of its controversial pastor Rob Bell, Mars Hill Bible Church has named Kent Dobson as its new senior minister. Dobson is familiar to the Grandville, Mich., church, having served as an early worship director, and an occasional guest speaker since Bell left. Dobson has recently taught religion at Grand Rapids Christian Schools, but in he resigned from a teaching position at NorthPointe Christian Schools of Grand Rapids. This move followed his appearance in a Discovery Channel program, Jesus: The Missing History, which raised questions about the place of Jesus’ birth, and whether the Gnostic “gospels” contained some truths.
WORLD
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SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
MEGACHURCH HIGH A new study by University of Washington sociologists suggests that worship at megachurches may induce a drug-like spiritual “high” which helps explain these congregations’ success. Scientists note that large gatherings around shared experiences, from concerts to football games, can trigger physiological reactions and feelings of joy and transcendence. They say that the brain releases a specific chemical, oxytocin, at higher rates during such events. The study indicates that worshipping at megachurches can have similar effects. Professor James Wellman, one of the coauthors, says that megachurch attendees whom they interviewed recounted experiences of “unalloyed joy over and over again.” That’s why the authors say that the feeling of going to a megachurch is “like a drug.” I asked Wellman whether the authors acknowledged the possibility that something more spiritually significant was happening at megachurch services than at non-religious events. He told me that, when writing as a scholar, he chooses to remain neutral on such questions. Personally, however, he has no problem with the notion that God might be stirring the participants and their physiological reaction. Wellman, who is also an ordained Presbyterian (PCUSA) youth minister at a relatively small church, sees no reason that God “wouldn’t use the physiology of the body to enthuse participants, it only makes sense.” —T.K.
Bell ignited a furor in with the publication of Love Wins, in which he implied that because of God’s unfailing love, no person would spend eternity in hell. Since leaving Mars Hill in October, Bell has been working on television and book projects in the Los Angeles area. He recently announced a two-day seminar in Laguna Beach where pastors and others could learn from Bell, take surfing lessons, and “be reminded that we signed up for a revolution,” as Bell puts it on his website. —T.K.
GOLDBERG: DAVID EBENER/EPA/LANDOV • MEGACHURCH: ERIC KAYNE/HOUSTON CHRONICLE/AP • DOBSON: HOLLYN JOHNSON/GRAND RAPIDS PRESS/LANDOV
I G, officials have pressed charges against a Jewish rabbi for performing circumcisions. The action comes in the wake of a court ruling in Cologne that banned all circumcisions but those done for “medical” reasons. After the ruling, a physician filed a complaint against Rabbi David Goldberg, who serves as a mohel (a ritual circumciser) for the Jewish community of Hof, in northern Bavaria. The -year-old Goldberg says he has performed more than , circumcisions on infant boys, procedures which are required under Jewish (and Muslim) ceremonial law. The German court ruled that when medically unnecessary, circumcision represents a “severe and irreversible interference into physical integrity.” Many Jewish, Muslim, and Christian leaders have argued that prosecuting Goldberg represents a major violation of religious liberty. Activists in San Francisco also attempted to ban religious circumcisions in a citywide vote in , but a judge forbade the initiative, noting that state law prevented localities from regulating healthcare providers. Princeton University professor Robert George, a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, has called on Americans to defend Jews’ right to maintain the practice, saying that banning religious circumcision is, “in effect, to forbid Jews from being Jews.”
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Committed to the Gospel... Commissioned to Engage the Leaders of Our Nation
Presently ministering in 19 state capitols, Capitol Commission seeks to bring honor and glory to Jesus Christ by: ■
Evangelizing those yet to experience a personal relationship with Jesus Christ
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■
Encouraging and Enabling the Church to participate with us
ROMANS 1:166
COLOSSIANS 2:6677 EPHESIANS 4:111122 1 TIMOTHY 2:1144
Will you partner with us, that the Word of God may be preached in all U.S. State Capitols, in city government and among the leaders of the world? Please join us in our mission by investing your prayers, nances and/or time. To receive a free booklet for your elected official please visit us online at: www.capitolcom.org/landing.aspx If true Christianity gains ground, “there is no estimating the effects on public morals, and the consequent influence on our political welfare.” – William Wilberforce
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Mailbag ‘Our parched land’
Aug. We should pray about the drought but our prayers shouldn’t just consist of asking for rain. I believe that the drought is a judgment for sin and that the only solution is to turn from our sins. Each of us should begin by examining his own life. —C H, Bonner Springs, Kan.
‘Cashed out’
‘Of things and men’
Aug. Thanks to Marvin Olasky for his investigative journalism regarding the NAE money trail. The distressing news was still weighing heavily on my mind when my husband read the follow-up report in the Aug. issue. It was refreshing rain in this time of drought. Still, I wonder why a conservative denomination should keep ties with the NAE when it seems to be functioning like the UN.
Aug. This was an excellent and insightful column. The process of turning over the nuts and bolts of lawmaking to the executive branch is a legacy of Progressivism and especially the New Deal. This mindless process is not limited to Obamacare. The huge national security state that began to metastasize after / is no different. Unfortunately conservative evangelicals did not oppose this and don’t like to take a hard look at those aspects of growth of government, nor do we like to take a hard look at the growing militarization of the police.
—S B, Indianapolis, Ind.
Sandwiched in the middle of an article about the NAE were five beautiful, salient points about marriage. At age and , amidst difficult circumstances my husband and I trusted God and plunged naïvely into our covenant relationship. It was a bit crazy, but we now see so clearly how the Lord’s hand guided and held us then as He does today. —H P, Boxford, Mass.
Aug. The Dark Knight Rises is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. Your review didn’t even mention the parallels to the French Revolution. The freeing of the prisoners, the Reign of Terror–like court scenes, and the quote from A Tale of Two Cities all made a deep impression on me. It’s chilling how similar the political rhetoric of today is to that dark period of history. —R A, Marshfield, Wis.
Megan Basham’s review highlighted director Christopher Nolan’s many strengths as a filmmaker, particularly his commitment to virtue and objective reality. Christians should be encouraged to attend and understand films that communicate such truths. —M S II, Baton Rouge, La.
—B A, Frostburg, Md.
This was a great lesson on the streams of history and philosophy that have led to the malignant growth of impersonal bureaucracy in our government. —L M, Bothell, Wash.
‘Alan astray’
Most of us can easily guess that premarital sex is the biggest fallout of the tendency to marry later. Although some are too young to get married, telling your children to wait when they have found the love of their life, and perhaps lose that person, is doing them a colossal disservice. As Paul said, very likely they will “burn with passion” in this sex-saturated society as they wait for another.
Aug. I was disappointed to read about the criticism Alan Chambers is facing from Christian organizations regarding his doubts about the effectiveness of homosexual “reparative therapy.” Addiction support groups for everything from alcohol to pornography warn their members about the deception of believing you are ever fully healed. Why would homosexuality be any different?
—E N, Big Canoe, Ga.
—J S, Sellersville, Pa.
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‘Going there’
The film had its moments, but I left the theater disappointed with how weak and fragile Batman was in Nolan’s portrayal. He was galvanized to fight injustice when his parents were murdered in front of him, yet he locked himself in his room to cry for eight years when his girlfriend died. In Nolan’s quest to make Batman more relatable, he made him too much like us. —S P, Annapolis, Md.
‘DOMA’s day of reckoning’ Aug. So President Obama (and now the Democratic Party Platform Committee) have decided that samesex marriage is right and that DOMA and all who support it are wrong. Apparently political office has given them some incredible wisdom and SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
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Mailbag
MOHER, CO. CLARE, IRELAND submitted by Joan Booth
power to determine that the definition of marriage, which has been true all of human history, is suddenly no longer true. —R G, Vicksburg, Mich.
‘Selective diversity’ Aug. It seems that Google has joined those companies pandering to the gay agenda by accusing those who oppose gay marriage of being “homophobes.” Perhaps instead homosexual activists are “heterophobic,” or afraid that conservative Jews, Christians, and Muslims are all correct that homosexuality is not consistent with God’s intended order in creation. —R G. R, El Dorado Hills, Calif.
‘Stay-at-home blues?’ Aug. As a stay-at-home mom of two children under , I was surprised that your article seemed to question the results of the Gallup poll, which showed SAHMs are more likely to be depressed than working mothers. I don’t question the results; we should instead question the selffocused mindset of women in our culture and even in the church. Motherhood for a believer is a process of dying to self through putting
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another being’s needs before your own, delaying gratification even for years, and ultimately trusting God. Is it any wonder that SAHMs can easily struggle with depression, especially those who genuinely wish to parent well? —L G, Plevna, Kan.
‘Sell it in a bottle’ Aug. I believe that changing our culture cannot start successfully with better education of our highschool and college young people. It has to start back in the home and family in the first year of the child. For the most part our children are growing up without the spiritual foundation and convictions that they need to cope with their peers and the pressures of the world. —W R, Tucson, Ariz.
‘The sweetness of God’s goodness’ Aug. Thank you for a very wellwritten column on the delights of biblical marriage and ultimately the divine wedding to come. I thank God that my wife and I have been married for years and we are in constant need of truth that overcomes tough times and deceptive hearts. This column is a great reminder that nothing
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compares to the heavenly gift of a godly wife. May we love with the fire of Baxter and Edwards. —M S, Bangor, Pa.
‘Outside the camp’ July Following the revolution, Egypt’s roughly million Coptic Christians are arguably as vulnerable as they’ve ever been. I have been to garbage cities described in the article and talked with the people living on mere scraps just miles outside of Cairo. Many of Egypt’s Copts were already on the fringes of society, and now with the recent political ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood and various Islamists elements, their future, in a land they have inhabited for centuries, is even more in question. I am appalled and deeply concerned that despite the strategic imperative and the moral obligation to act, this State Department and this administration seem unable or unwilling to address this issue with the urgency it demands.
Waldo H. Carkhuff, M.Div., S.T.M., Th. D. writes: ““God’s Heart. . .Our Hope masterfully enlightens and systematically guides its reader down a path towards better understanding HIS divine plan and purpose for life and life eternal. Somewhere, some place in history, at some moment in time, you must come face-to-face with God. Why not best prepare for that encounter? God’s Heart. . .Our Hope will surely cure Biblical myopia and, yes, you will ‘see’ HIM. HIM . .though for now, with your heart.” Dr. Palmer has served as Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology at Covenant Theological Seminary (St. Louis) and as a visiting professor of Christian Education at Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando). Go to www.hopeinGod.net/media to read a chapter from the book. Special price: -- or hlg@usa.net. VISA accepted.
—Hon. F W, Member of Congress, Herndon, Va.
‘Niche nook’ July The first thing I look at when WORLD arrives is the book review section. This is where I learned of Charles Todd, author of wonderful mysteries set just after World War I. On the other hand, I found the recently reviewed What’s That Funny Look on Your Faith? to be crass and disrespectful to God’s Word. I returned it. —C H, Rathdrum, Idaho
LETTERS AND PHOTOS Email: mailbag@worldmag.com Write: WORLD Mailbag, PO Box , Asheville, NC - Please include full name and address. Letters may be edited to yield brevity and clarity.
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krieg barrie
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Andrée Seu Peterson
Powerful inferences Christians can boldly extrapolate from what we know about God
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KRIEG BARRIE
H that the greatest saints are all extrapolators? Extrapolate: () to infer or estimate by extending or projecting known information. () Mathematics. To estimate ... from values within a known range by assuming that the estimated value follows logically from the known values (The Free Dictionary). God has always shown delight in those who “infer” with confidence. The “known information” from which they “project” is God’s words and His deeds. Each time He performed a miracle, it pushed out the boundaries of the possible and the askable that much further. It simultaneously created the responsibility to believe Him for a similar situation in the future. When Jesus fed a multitude on a child’s lunch, the apostles were meant to extrapolate that He could do it again. Jesus chided them when they did not. Abraham extrapolated when he considered both God’s power and His promise of an heir, and “inferred” from that “known information” that if God wanted him to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar, He would raise him up again (Hebrews :). Abe extrapolated to the extreme. The centurion of Matthew was an extrapolator. He believed Jesus was God, and then he did a little mental calculation. Step One: God has authority over all He made, including words. He can make things happen just by speaking them, because words are His servants. Step Two: I have authority over a hundred men. I can make things happen by just speaking them, because my men are my servants. Step Three: Jesus doesn’t need to be physically at my house to heal my daughter. He can say, “Heal her!” from this spot, and His words will ricochet like greased lightning through the doglegged streets to her bedside. I know a man whose marriage is restored today because he read Hosea and reasoned that God’s pursuit of ancient Israel meant he could pursue his estranged wife. That’s extrapolation. My friend Kathleen prays for her dream life because she reckons from the command “to love God with all your mind” that it is not desirable to
Email: aseupeterson@worldmag.com
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waste one-third of one’s life in unproductive sleep. That prayer is extrapolation. On Sunday I happened to sit near a woman I don’t know. She shared with me the drowning death of her -year-old a year ago this Wednesday. I am praying for her this week, extrapolating from Esther : that it was for my praying that God seated us together. We can go through life scratching the surface of Scripture, or we can become extrapolators. Extrapolating is God’s upper-level course, yet it is available to everyone. It involves God’s propositional revelation and the Holy Spirit’s personal and creative application to you. I read in Corinthians : that “if a woman has long hair, it is her glory … her hair is given to her for a covering.” I felt at liberty to extrapolate from this that I was within my rights and God’s declared will to ask God to arrest my alarming hair loss. Extrapolation means you may not say the miracles have ceased: God is still willing and able. In the middle of a cholera epidemic in , Charles Spurgeon was returning home from yet another funeral when a shard of paper wedged in a shoemaker’s window caught his eye. It said, “Because thou hast made the Lord … thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.” Surgeon subsequently wrote: “The effect upon my heart was immediate. Faith appropriated the passage as her own. I felt secure, refreshed, girt with immortality. I went on with my visitation of the dying in a calm and peaceful spirit; I felt no fear of evil, and I suffered no harm.” Consider what a stretch that was. The preacher took a ,-year-old psalm, made a leap of historical context and centuries, and applied it to himself in a mid-th-century cholera-ridden Britain. God found no fault with his theology. Who knows what reservoir of “known values” coalesced in Spurgeon to produce his eureka moment? Was it inferences from the Atonement (Isaiah :-; Psalm :-; Peter :)? Was it the doctrine that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil ( John :)? Extrapolating is fun because it is the Spirit leading us into all truth as we need it—which is just as Jesus promised He would (John :). A SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
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Marvin Olasky
Clinical repression Will Washington harm community-based charity, again?
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S M, CEO of Community Health Centers of Arkansas, says FQHCs are the best kept secret that shouldn’t be a secret. When WORLD intern Kira Clark asked charitably minded Americans what they thought about FQHCs, she found that not one had heard of them. FQHCs are Federally Qualified Health Centers. They receive cash from Washington—start-up funding of up to ,, and millions afterward— plus free malpractice coverage under the Federal Tort Claims Act. They must be governed by a board of directors, a majority of whom must be active, registered FQHC patients. Legislators and officials originally created FQHCs to reduce the patient load on hospital emergency rooms, but their function has expanded to serve potentially all poor or uninsured Americans and immigrants. Some , FQHCs now provide services regardless of ability to pay. What’s not to like? Just this: FQHCs may be a healthcare blessing to some poor Americans, but if historical precedent holds, they will also become a curse. The precedent: American poverty-fighting until the s was Christian—and community-based. The Depression intensified the challenge, but the New Deal, instead of bulwarking private programs, marginalized them. A generation later the War on Poverty warred on the remaining Christian programs. The result: Soulless welfare offices replaced charities that offered challenging, personal, and spiritual help. In many households, provision from the government replaced provision from a husband and father—and devalued men slunk away. Washington enabled more people to disable themselves by using drugs or alcohol. The same dollar flow went to a mother who cared for her children and one who selfishly ignored them. American churches and charities before the s, within the material opportunities of their eras, did a good but incomplete job of povertyfighting. Today, America’s charity clinics do a good but incomplete job of providing medical help to the poor and the uninsured. Sure, gaps exist and more resources would be great, but does that mean that the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) should wave
We should be giving charity clinics more support and flexibility by voucherizing healthcare expenditures.
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SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
a magic wand, with dollars stuck to it, and turn many of them into FQHCs? A recent Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy (KP) study offered an imperative for federal policymakers: “First, do no harm. … Policymakers should consider the impact of reform measures on the financial viability and operational stability of these programs.” The KP study noted that “current financial support for charity care programs may diminish amid health reform implementation. For example, donors may perceive a reduced need for funding, given the extensive coverage expansions.” Our experience with welfare suggests that this will happen. It will happen sometimes by choice, as donors feel they’re paying taxes to fix the problem, so why should they contribute more? It will happen sometimes by necessity, as taxes rise and those who supported charity clinics have fewer discretionary dollars and (as they struggle to maintain their standard of living) less discretionary time. We should be giving charity clinics more support and flexibility by voucherizing healthcare expenditures: Then individuals rather than officials could decide which programs will live and which will die. Instead, the KP study suggests that many Christian and other charity clinics within the new health order will become “subcontractors for health plans and Medicaid as the organizations serve a newly insured population. Charity care programs could screen and enroll members, or advise plans and Medicaid on outreach and health management.” Whoop-de-do: Charity clinics will become, to use biblical terminology, hewers of wood and drawers of water for Washington. That’s not the case now: Right now, Christian FQHCs are doing great work, serving the poor in an explicitly Christian way—but the history of welfare suggests that the golden age will become silver, then bronze, then mud. The Obama administration’s demand for mandatory contraception coverage already shows how religious liberty can slip away. Some Christian proponents of Washingtondominated poverty-fighting in the s and the s were as optimistic as Obamacare backers now are, but the results have not been pretty, as the welfare reform movement of the s attested. Please read our special section on charity healthcare and learn about the remarkable body of programs that Christians and others have built. Let’s help them, not pave them over. A Email: molasky@worldmag.com
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For graduation rates, the median debt of students who completed the program and other important info visit on.bju.edu/rates. (12014) 2/12
Health care for people of Biblical 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 treatments of conditions resulting from other immoral 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 nearly 21,000* households of Samaritan Ministries share more than $5 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 $355*, 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 June 2012
Biblical faith applied to health care www.samaritanministries.org
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