The Royal Wedding at Buckingham Palace on 29th April 2011: The Bride and Groom, TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in the Throne Room.
Picture Credit: Photograph by Hugo Burnand
Note: The photos are for editorial use only, and they are must not be re-sold or commercially exploited in any way. For requests other than editorial use, please put your requests in writing to Press Office, St James’s Palace, London, SW1A 1BS.
Prince William and Kate moved in together about a year ago. In this clip above the commentator suggested that maybe Prince Charles and Princess Diana would not have divorced if they had lived together before marriage. Actually Diana was a virgin, and it was Charles’ uncle (Louis Mountbatten) that gave him the advice that he should seek to marry a virgin.
I really do wish Kate and William success in their marriage. I hope they truly are committed to each other, and if they are then the result will be a marriage that lasts their whole lifetime. Nevertheless, I do not think it is best to live together before marriage like they did, and I writing this series to help couples see how best to prepare for marriage.
We are to refuse to take, exploit, cheapen, defraud, or substitute sexual activity for genuine love and authentic intimacy. In order to understand this paradigm, we’ve got to remember that sex is not wrong and God is no prude. Sex is not a sin to be avoided but a gift to be cherished. You and I want genuine intimacy. We want to have relationships that matter. We long for someone to feel deeply loved because of us. We also want to be loved and cherished and cared for by someone else. [In Ephesians 5:3-4, the Apostle] Paul says certain things will squelch and destroy love and break relationships. These are crucial warnings. If we are going to love somebody, we will not take, exploit, or cheapen him or her. We will not engage in sexual activity to create pseudo-intimacy that’s false because we don’t really care and we’re not really committed. We won’t substitute sex for authentic intimacy. (Chip Ingram, Love, Sex, and Lasting Relationships)
• MARRIAGE MYTH: Couples who live together before marriage, and are thus able to test how well suited they are for each other, have more satisfying and longer-lasting marriages than couples that don’t.Many studies have found that those who live together before marriage have less satisfying marriages and a considerably higher chance of eventually breaking up. One reason is that people who cohabit may be more skittish of commitment and more likely to call it quits when problems arise. In addition, the very act of living together may lead to attitudes that make happy marriages more difficult. The findings of one recent study, for example, suggest, “There may be less motivation for cohabiting partners to develop their conflict resolution and support skills.” (Smartmarriages® Subject: Top 10 Myths of Marriage- Popenoe/Piece of Paper schedule – 2/13/02)
Weekend To Remember Conference Testimony
Here’s a couple who went to a FamilyLife Conference and how it made a difference
Back in 2008 I wrote a paper on the spiritual themes of Coldplay’s album Viva La Vida and I predicted this spiritual search would continue in the future. Below is the second part of the paper, “Coldplay’s latest musical lyrics indicate a Spiritual Search for the Afterlife.”
_____________________________
Death and the time cycle
Over and over in Coldplay’s latest music you see the theme of death and the time cycle brought up concerning the shortness of a person’s life. Earlier I quoted the song “42” that states “Life is so short” and in the song “Life in Technicolor II” (Prospekt March) : “Time came a creeping, Oh and time’s a loaded gun.” Even more than this do you see death mentioned. The song “42” which I quoted earlier said, “Those who are dead” and the song “Poppyfields” (from Prospekt March) states, “People burying their dead” and later says, “I don’t wanna die on my own in a separate sky.” The song “Violet Hill” states, “When I’m dead and hit the ground” and in the song “Viva La Vida” “Revolutionaries wait for my head on a silver plate.” Needless to say I do not even have to mention that other songs like “Death and All his Friends”and “Cemeteries of London” also deal with death. Solomon had to grapple with the fact of his upcoming death.
Ecclesiastes 3:18-21
18 I also thought about the human condition—how God proves to people that they are like animals. 19 For people and animals share the same fate—both breathe[a] and both must die. So people have no real advantage over the animals. How meaningless! 20 Both go to the same place—they came from dust and they return to dust. 21 For who can prove that the human spirit goes up and the spirit of animals goes down into the earth?
There is another rock group that looked at the logical conclusion of man in the light of death:
In 1978 I heard the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas. That song told me that Kerry Livgren the writer of that song and a member of Kansas had come to the conclusion that life without God in the picture was like dust in the wind which was exactly what Solomon said in Ecclesiastes when he talked about life “under the sun.” In fact, in the verses I just listed (3:18-21) Solomon says we are all returning to the dust and there is no reason to think we are going any where else with God out of the picture. Take a look at what Kerry Livgren wrote back in 1978:
DUST IN THE WIND
I close my eyes
Only for a moment and the moment’s gone
All my dreams
Flash before my eyes of curiosity
Dust in the wind
All they are is dust in the wind
Same old song
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Now
Don’t hang on
Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky
It slips away
And all your money won’t another minute buy
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind
Everything is dust in the wind
(Dust in the Wind)
Power reigns in this life and the scales are not balanced.
Solomon comes to the realization that powers reigns in this life and the scales are not balanced.
Ecclesiastes 4:1 Again, I observed all the oppression that takes place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, with no one to comfort them. The oppressors have great power, and their victims are helpless.
Ecclesiastes 7:15
15 I have seen everything in this meaningless life, including the death of good young people and the long life of wicked people.
People that believe there is no afterlife must concede that Hitler will never face the due punishment for his acts. However, in the song “Viva La Vida” the evil king DID NOT MAKE IT TO HEAVEN. “I used to rule the world…Feel the fear in my enemy’s eyes…there was never an honest word and that was when I ruled the world, It was the wicked and wild wind, Blew down the doors to let me in, Shattered windows and the sound of drums, People couldn’t believe what I’d become.”
Later in the song, “For some reason I can’t explain, I KNOW SAINT PETER WON’T CALL MY NAME, Never an honest word, But that was when I ruled the world.”
This last part indicates to me that Coldplay realizes that evil individuals will be judged in an afterlife.
God reveals Himself in two Ways
Lets take a look at the lyrics from the song “Cemeteries of London:”
God is in the houses
And God is in my head
And all the cemeteries of London
I see God come in my garden
But I don’t know what He said
For my heart, it wasn’t open
Not open
Romans chapter one clearly points out that God has revealed Himself through both the created world around us and also in a God-given conscience that testifies to each person that God exists.
Notice in this song that the song writer notes, “I see God come in my garden” and “God is in my head.” These are the exact two places mentioned by the scripture. Romans 1:18-20 (Amplified version)
18For God’s [holy] wrath and indignation are revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness repress and hinder the truth and make it inoperative.
19For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them.
20For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification],(B)
I have shown what thought processes Solomon went through in Ecclesiastes and then compared them to the evident changes that are occurring with Coldplay. By the way, the final chapter of Ecclesiastes finishes with Solomon emphasizing that serving God is the only proper response of man. My prediction: I am hoping that Coldplay’s next album will also come to that same conclusion that Solomon came to in Ecclesiastes 12:13-14:
13 Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil.
Kerry Livgren of Kansas found Christ eventually after first trying some Eastern Religions. I remember telling my friends in 1978 when “Dust in the Wind” was the number 6 song in the USA that Kansas had written a philosophical song that came to the same conclusion about humanistic man as Solomon did so long ago and I predicted that some members of that band would come to know the Christ of the Bible in a personal way. You can hear Kerry Livgren’s story from this youtube link:
Coldplay – 42 Live Coldplay perform on the french television channel W9. I wrote this article a couple of years ago: The Spiritual Search for the Afterlife Russ Breimeier rightly noted that it seems that Coldplay is “on the verge of identifying a great Truth” and their latest CD is very provocative. Many songs mention […]
CP I wrote this article a couple of years ago. Are Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin looking for Spiritual Answers? Just like King Solomon’s predicament in the Book of Ecclesiastes, both of these individuals are very wealthy, famous, and successful, but they still are seeking satisfying answers to life’s greatest questions even though it […]
Coldplay seeks to corner the market on earnest and expressive rock music that currently appeals to wide audiences Here is an article I wrote a couple of years ago about Chris Martin’s view of hell. He says he does not believe in it but for some reason he writes a song that teaches that it […]
Views:2 By waymedia Coldplay Coldplay – Life In Technicolor ii Back in 2008 I wrote a paper on the spiritual themes of Coldplay’s album Viva La Vida and I predicted this spiritual search would continue in the future. Below is the second part of the paper, “Coldplay’s latest musical lyrics indicate a Spiritual Search for the […]
Coldplay performing “Glass of Water.” Back in 2008 I wrote a paper on the spiritual themes of Coldplay’s album Viva La Vida and I predicted this spiritual search would continue in the future. Below is the first part of the paper, “Coldplay’s latest musical lyrics indicate a Spiritual Search for the Afterlife.” Coldplay’s latest musical […]
Coldplay – Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall (Official) The new single – download it now from iTunes at http://cldp.ly/itunescp (except in the UK, where it will be released to download stores at 12.01am on Sunday June 5th). Written by Berryman / Buckland / Champion / Martin / Allen / Anderson. Produced by Markus Dravs, Dan […]
Archaeology demonstrates solid connections between the biblical record and ancient history, in contrast to Christopher Hitchens’ assertion that it is an implausible record. Consider the following:
The Life of Joseph
In the very section of the Bible that Hitchens questions is found some of the most compelling evidence for the historicity of Scripture. As Egyptologist James K. Hoffmeier demonstrates, the story for Joseph rings true with numerous details (Hoffmeier, James K.,1996, Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition,Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 77-98). The 20-shekel price paid for Joseph (Genesis 37:28) is consistent with the price of a slave c. 1700 B.C. Egyptian mummification took about 70 days once the period for mourning was included, which matches the time given for the mummification of Jacob (Genesis 50:3). Examples of non-Egyptians becoming viziers is known from Egyptian sources. Further, it appears that the story of Joseph was put down in writing during the 18th-19th Dynasties in Egypt, the very period during which Moses lived. This idea is borne out by the fact that the Pentateuch uses the name “Pharaoh” (Hebrew phar’oh, Egyptian per-`3) when referring to the king of Egypt. During this time, the term was a generic one referring to the king, similar to referring to the U.S. President as “the White House,” or to the British monarch as “the Crown.” Prior to this time, the name of the king was used, and afterward sources mention the monarch as “Pharaoh X” or “X, king of Egypt”—as in the case of pharaohs Shishak (1 Kings 11:40; 2 Chronicles 12:2) and Neco (2 Kings 23:29).
After the evidence is surveyed, it is apparent that much of the criticism of the Bible arises—not from intense scrutiny of the evidence—but from ignorance of it. The overwhelming weight of the archaeological and historical evidence firmly places the Bible in the sphere of reality rather than myth.
As of April 8, 2011, Dewayne Bryant holds two Masters degrees, and is completing Masters study in Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and Languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, while pursuing doctoral studies at Amridge University. He has participated in an archaeological dig at Tell El-Borg in Egypt and holds professional membership in the American Schools of Oriental Research, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the Archaeological Institute of America.
I will be sharing portions of the article “How Do We Know that the Bible Is True?,” by Dr. Jason Lisle, Answers in Genesis, March 22, 2011. Here is the second part:
The Bible is an extraordinary work of literature, and it makes some astonishing claims. It records the details of the creation of the universe, the origin of life, the moral law of God, the history of man’s rebellion against God, and the historical details of God’s work of redemption for all who trust in His Son. Moreover, the Bible claims to be God’s revelation to mankind. If true, this has implications for all aspects of life: how we should live, why we exist, what happens when we die, and what our meaning and purpose is. But how do we know if the claims of the Bible are true?
Some Typical Answers
By Faith
When asked how they know that the Bible is true, some Christians have answered, “We know the Bible is true by faith.” While that answer may sound pious, it is not very logical, nor is it a correct application of Scripture. Faith is the confident belief in something that you cannot perceive with your senses (Hebrews 11:1). So when I believe without observation that the earth’s core is molten, I am acting on a type of faith. Likewise, when I believe in God whom I cannot directly see, I am acting on faith. Don’t misunderstand. We should indeed have faith in God and His Word. But the “by faith” response does not actually answer the objection that has been posed—namely, how we know that the Bible is true.
Since faith is a belief in something unseen, the above response is not a good argument. “We know by faith” is the equivalent of saying, “We know by believing.” But clearly, the act of believing in something doesn’t necessarily make it true. A person doesn’t really know something just by believing it. He simply believes it. So the response is essentially, “We believe because we believe.” While it is true that we believe, this answer is totally irrelevant to the question being asked. It is a non-answer. Such a response is not acceptable for a person who is a follower of Christ. The Bible teaches that we are to be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks a reason of the hope that is within us (1 Peter 3:15). Saying that we have faith is not the same as giving a reason for that faith.
The truth of the Bible is obvious to anyone willing to fairly investigate it. The Bible is uniquely self-consistent and extraordinarily authentic. It has changed the lives of millions of people who have placed their faith in Christ. It has been confirmed countless times by archaeology and other sciences. It possesses divine insight into the nature of the universe and has made correct predictions about distant future events with perfect accuracy. When Christians read the Bible, they cannot help but recognize the voice of their Creator. The Bible claims to be the Word of God, and it demonstrates this claim by making knowledge possible. It is the standard of standards. The proof of the Bible is that unless its truth is presupposed, we couldn’t prove anything at all.8
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Back in 2008 I wrote a paper on the spiritual themes of Coldplay’s album Viva La Vida and I predicted this spiritual search would continue in the future. Below is the first part of the paper, “Coldplay’s latest musical lyrics indicate a Spiritual Search for the Afterlife.”
Coldplay’s latest musical lyrics indicate a Spiritual Search for the Afterlife
In Coldplay’s latest songs you can see that something has changed about the focus of the band’s song writing. What is going on? The internet has been full of speculation concerning the radical lyrical change in the latest Coldplay work compared to the previous 3 albums.
Russ Briemeier of Christianity Today: “What does it all mean? With so many questions posed, a single interpretation of this album is virtually impossible…
Yet taken collectively, there is no ignoring the fact that spiritual themes are prevalent throughout the album. Viva La Vidaseems to be about coping with death in a world corrupted by sin, temptation, and war. Though it never goes deeper than mentioning God or referencing a specific theology, the lyrics often yearn with hope and love for a better world—utopia or heaven, it’s up to your interpretation… Viva La Vida is often provocative, spiritual, and seemingly on the verge of identifying a greater Truth, asking and inspiring many questions without providing the answers.”
The Spiritual Search for the Afterlife
Many of Coldplay’s latest songs mention God and other Biblical themes such as dealing with death, and the afterlife and the shortness of life. It seems to me that Coldplay has focused on spiritual issues in their lyrics but they are still in the process of working out all the answers and still formulating their religious belief systems. Here is a sample of their latest works:
In the song “Glass of Water”:
Oh he said you could see a future,
inside a glass of water,
With riddles and the rhymes
He asked ‘Will I see heaven in mine’
Ooooh, oooh, ooooh …
Possibly searching for the path to Heaven or hoping after death heaven is the destination. It reminds me also of the song “42” that says, “You thought you might be a ghost, You didn’t get to heaven but you made it close.”
(Coldplay performs “42”)
In the song “Now my feet won’t touch the ground”:
Now my head won’t stop
You wait a lifetime to be found
Here someone maybe searching for you instead of you searching for someone else? Could it be a way of saying that God is searching for you in a sense? In the context of the rest of the album that may not be such a bad interpretation.
The song “42” states,
Those who are dead are not dead
They’re just living my head
And since I fell for that spell
I am living there as well
Oh…
Time is so short and I’m sure
There must be something more
This is the same question that Solomon asked 3000 years ago in the Book of Ecclesiastes. He knew there was something more. The Christian Philosopher Francis Schaeffer noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes. The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.”
Solomon had all the resources in the world and he found himself searching for meaning in life and trying to come up with answers concerning the afterlife. However, it seems every door he tries to open is locked. Solomon found no lasting satisfaction in riches (Ecclesiastes 2:8-11), pleasure (2:1), education (2:3) and his work (2:4). None of those were able to “fill the God-sized vacuum in his heart” (quote from famous mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal). That reminds of the Coldplay’s words in the song “Lost”: “Every river that I tried to cross, Every door I ever tried was locked.”
Moreover, what looms over Solomon’s search for meaningful answers is his upcoming death. In the song, “The Escapist,” which shares tract 10 with the song “Death and all his Friends,” Coldplay notes:
And in the end
We lie awake
And we dream
We’ll make an escape
Is this an escape from Death? Since this song follows the song “Death and all his Friends,” it seems that would be the case.
Death and all his friends
This is a tribute to Queen…
Coldplay – Death and all his friends from the album Viva la Vida ..
________________________
Coldplay is my favorite band and I hope to have many more posts in the next few days. Here are some posts I have done up till this point:
Coldplay – 42 Live Coldplay perform on the french television channel W9. I wrote this article a couple of years ago: The Spiritual Search for the Afterlife Russ Breimeier rightly noted that it seems that Coldplay is “on the verge of identifying a great Truth” and their latest CD is very provocative. Many songs mention […]
CP I wrote this article a couple of years ago. Are Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin looking for Spiritual Answers? Just like King Solomon’s predicament in the Book of Ecclesiastes, both of these individuals are very wealthy, famous, and successful, but they still are seeking satisfying answers to life’s greatest questions even though it […]
Coldplay seeks to corner the market on earnest and expressive rock music that currently appeals to wide audiences Here is an article I wrote a couple of years ago about Chris Martin’s view of hell. He says he does not believe in it but for some reason he writes a song that teaches that it […]
Views:2 By waymedia Coldplay Coldplay – Life In Technicolor ii Back in 2008 I wrote a paper on the spiritual themes of Coldplay’s album Viva La Vida and I predicted this spiritual search would continue in the future. Below is the second part of the paper, “Coldplay’s latest musical lyrics indicate a Spiritual Search for the […]
Coldplay performing “Glass of Water.” Back in 2008 I wrote a paper on the spiritual themes of Coldplay’s album Viva La Vida and I predicted this spiritual search would continue in the future. Below is the first part of the paper, “Coldplay’s latest musical lyrics indicate a Spiritual Search for the Afterlife.” Coldplay’s latest musical […]
Coldplay – Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall (Official) The new single – download it now from iTunes at http://cldp.ly/itunescp (except in the UK, where it will be released to download stores at 12.01am on Sunday June 5th). Written by Berryman / Buckland / Champion / Martin / Allen / Anderson. Produced by Markus Dravs, Dan […]
Coldplay – Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall (Official)
The new single – download it now from iTunes at http://cldp.ly/itunescp (except in the UK, where it will be released to download stores at 12.01am on Sunday June 5th). Written by Berryman / Buckland / Champion / Martin / Allen / Anderson.
Produced by Markus Dravs, Dan Green and Rik Simpson
Enoxification and additional composition by Brian Eno
This morning, Coldplay dropped their long-awaited first single from their upcoming fifth album, “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall.” And to no one’s surprise, it’s another epic inspirational cut from the quartet.
“I turn the music on/ I’ve got my records on/ From underneath the rubble, sing a rebel song,” Chris Martin crows over stirring guitar rifts
Coldplay is my favorite band and I hope to have many more posts in the next few days. Here are some posts I have done up till this point:
Coldplay – 42 Live Coldplay perform on the french television channel W9. I wrote this article a couple of years ago: The Spiritual Search for the Afterlife Russ Breimeier rightly noted that it seems that Coldplay is “on the verge of identifying a great Truth” and their latest CD is very provocative. Many songs mention […]
CP I wrote this article a couple of years ago. Are Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin looking for Spiritual Answers? Just like King Solomon’s predicament in the Book of Ecclesiastes, both of these individuals are very wealthy, famous, and successful, but they still are seeking satisfying answers to life’s greatest questions even though it […]
Coldplay seeks to corner the market on earnest and expressive rock music that currently appeals to wide audiences Here is an article I wrote a couple of years ago about Chris Martin’s view of hell. He says he does not believe in it but for some reason he writes a song that teaches that it […]
Views:2 By waymedia Coldplay Coldplay – Life In Technicolor ii Back in 2008 I wrote a paper on the spiritual themes of Coldplay’s album Viva La Vida and I predicted this spiritual search would continue in the future. Below is the second part of the paper, “Coldplay’s latest musical lyrics indicate a Spiritual Search for the […]
Coldplay performing “Glass of Water.” Back in 2008 I wrote a paper on the spiritual themes of Coldplay’s album Viva La Vida and I predicted this spiritual search would continue in the future. Below is the first part of the paper, “Coldplay’s latest musical lyrics indicate a Spiritual Search for the Afterlife.” Coldplay’s latest musical […]
Coldplay – Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall (Official) The new single – download it now from iTunes at http://cldp.ly/itunescp (except in the UK, where it will be released to download stores at 12.01am on Sunday June 5th). Written by Berryman / Buckland / Champion / Martin / Allen / Anderson. Produced by Markus Dravs, Dan […]
Philosopher and Theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer has argued, “If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.” Francis Schaeffer, How Shall We Then Live? (Old Tappan NJ: Fleming H Revell Company, 1976), p. 224.
“We stand today on the edge of a great abyss,” they wrote. “At this crucial moment choices are being made and thrust on us that will for many years to come affect the way people are treated. We want to try to help tip the scales on the side of those who believe that individuals are unique and special and have great dignity.”
This year marks the 25th anniversary of “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” by Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop. The anniversary serves to remind us just how unaware and unawake most evangelicals really were 25 years ago — and how prophetic the voices of Schaeffer and Koop were.
Whatever Happened to the Human Race? was both a book project and a film series, the fruit of an unusual collaboration between Francis Schaeffer, one of the truly significant figures of 20th-century evangelicalism, and C. Everett Koop, one of the nation’s most illustrious pediatric surgeons. They were an odd couple of sorts, but on the crucial issues of human dignity and the threat of what would later be called the “Culture of Death,” they were absolutely united.
Francis Schaeffer, who died in 1984, was nothing less than a 20th-century prophet. He was a genuine eccentric, given to wearing leather breeches and sporting a goatee — then quite unusual for anyone in the evangelical establishment. Then again, Schaeffer was never really a member of any establishment, and that is partly why a generation of questioning young people made their way to his Swiss study center known as L’Abri.
Big ideas were Schaeffer’s business — and the Christian worldview was his consistent framework. Long before most evangelicals even knew they had a worldview, Schaeffer was taking alternative worldviews apart and inculcating in his students a love for the architecture of Christian truth and the dignity of ideas.
Key figures on the evangelical left wrote Schaeffer off as a crank, and he returned the favor by denying that they were evangelicals at all. They complained that he did not follow their rules for scholarly publication. He pointed out that people actually read his books — and young people frustrated with cultural Christianity read his books by the thousands. They were looking for someone with ideas big enough for the age, relevant for the questions of the times, and based without compromise in Christian truth. Francis Schaeffer — knee pants and all — became a prophet for the age.
Dr. C. Everett Koop, on the other hand, is a paragon of the American establishment — a former surgeon-in-chief at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia and later surgeon general of the United States under President Reagan. In 1974 Koop catapulted to international attention by performing the first successful surgical separation of conjoined twins. A Presbyterian layman, Koop lives in quasi-retirement in Pennsylvania. His surgical procedures remain textbook cases for medical students today.
Whatever Happened to the Human Race? awakened American evangelicals to the anti-human technologies and ideologies that then threatened human dignity. Most urgently, the project put abortion unquestionably on the front burner of evangelical concern. The tenor of the times is seen in the fact that Schaeffer and Koop had to argue to evangelicals in the late 1970s that abortion was not just a “Catholic” issue. They taught many evangelicals a new and urgently needed vocabulary about embryo ethics, euthanasia and infanticide. They knew they were running out of time.
“Each era faces its own unique blend of problems,” they argued. “Our time is no exception. Those who regard individuals as expendable raw material — to be molded, exploited, and then discarded — do battle on many fronts with those who see each person as unique and special, worthwhile, and irreplaceable.”
Every age is marked by both the “thinkable” and the “unthinkable,” they asserted — and the “thinkable” of late-20th-century Western cultures was dangerously anti-human. The lessons of the century — with the Holocaust at its center — should be sufficient to drive the point home. The problem, as illustrated by those who worked in Hitler’s death camps, was the inevitable result of a loss of conscience and moral truth. They were “people just like all of us,” Koop and Schaeffer reminded. “We seem to be in danger of forgetting our seemingly unlimited capacities for evil, once boundaries to certain behavior are removed.”
By the last quarter of the century, life and death were treated as mere matters of choice. “The schizophrenic nature of our society became further evident as it became common practice for pediatricians to provide the maximum of resuscitative and supportive care in newborn intensive-care nurseries where premature infants were under their care — while obstetricians in the same medical centers were routinely destroying enormous numbers of unborn babies who were normal and frequently of larger size. Minors who could not legally purchase liquor and cigarettes could have an abortion-on-demand and without parental consent or knowledge.”
Schaeffer and Koop pointed to other examples of moral schizophrenia. Disabled persons were given new access to facilities and services in the name of human rights, while preborn infants diagnosed with the same disabilities were often aborted — with the advice that it would be “wrong” to bring such a baby into the world.
Long before the discovery of stem cells and calls for the use of human embryos for such experimentation, Schaeffer and Koop warned of attacks upon human life at its earliest stage. “Embryos ‘created’ in the biologist’s laboratory raise special questions because they have the potential for growth and development if planted in the womb. The disposal of these live embryos is a cause for ethical and moral concern.”
They also saw the specter of infanticide and euthanasia. Infanticide, including what is now called “partial-birth abortion,” is murder, they argued. “Infanticide is being practiced right now in this country, and the saddest thing about this is that it is being carried on by the very segment of the medical profession which has always stood in the role of advocate for the lives of children.” Long before the formal acceptance of euthanasia in countries like the Netherlands, Koop and Schaeffer saw the rise of a “duty to die” argument used against the old, the very sick and the unproductive. They rejected euthanasia in the case of a “so-called vegetative existence” and warned all humanity that disaster awaited a society that lusted for a “beautiful death.”
“Abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia are not only questions for women and other relatives directly involved — nor are they the prerogatives of a few people who have thought through the wider ramifications,” they declared. “They are life-and-death issues that concern the whole human race equally and should be addressed as such.”
How did this happen? This embrace of an anti-human “humanism” could only be explained by the rejection of the Christian worldview. “Judeo-Christian teaching was never perfectly applied,” they acknowledged, “but it did lay a foundation for a high view of human life in concept and practice.” Through the inculcation of biblical values, “people viewed human life as unique — to be protected and loved — because each individual is made in the image of God.”
Two great enemies of truth were blamed for this loss of biblical truth — modern secularism and theological liberalism. The secularists insist on the imposition of a “humanism” that defines humanity in terms of productivity, arbitrary standards of beauty and health, and an inverted system of value. Theological liberalism, denying the truthfulness of the Bible, robs the church and the society of any solid authority. The biblical concept of humanity made in the image of God is treated as poetry rather than as truth. But, “if people are not made in the image of God, the pessimistic, realistic humanist is right: The human race is indeed an abnormal wart on the smooth face of a silent and meaningless universe.”
Everything else simply follows. “In this setting, abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia … are completely logical. Any person can be obliterated for what society at one moment thinks of as its own social or economic good.” Once human life and human dignity are devalued to this degree, recovery is extremely difficult — if not impossible.
The past 25 years has been a period of even more rapid technological and moral change. We now face threats to human dignity unimaginable just a quarter-century ago. We must now deal with the ethical challenges of embryo research, human cloning, the Human Genome Project and the rise of transhuman technologies. Even with many Christians aware and active on these issues, we are losing ground.
Francis Schaeffer and Everett Koop ended their book with a call for action. “If, in this last part of the twentieth century, the Christian community does not take a prolonged and vocal stand for the dignity of the individual and each person’s right to life — for the right of each person to be treated as created in the image of God, rather than as a collection of molecules with no unique value — we feel that as Christians we have failed the greatest moral test to be put before us in this century.”
In this new century, that warning is even more threatening and more urgent. The challenges of the 21st century are even greater than those faced in the century before. This should make us even more thankful for the prophetic witness of Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop — and even more determined to contend for life. Humanity still stands on the brink of that abyss. –30– Adapted from the Crosswalk.com weblog of R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
President Reagan and Nancy Reagan present Pianist Vladimir Horowitz with the Medal of Freedom in the Roosevelt room. 7/28/86.
From Oct. 28, 1980 in Cleveland, here is part 10 of 11 of the Carter-Reagan Presidential Debate, as taped from WJKW-TV, CBS. This segment has the end of the debate, plus some analysis from the CBS News Staff. Part 11 will have news from WJKW, TV8 in Cleveland, about the debate.
The first and most decisive step was tax reform. The top marginal rate on individual income was 70 percent, and Reagan, who had majored in economics in college and had read extensively in the field during the 1950s and 1960s, concluded that if you reduced tax rates and allowed people to spend or save more of what they earned, “they’ll be more industrious, they’ll have more incentive to work hard, and money they earn will add fuel to the great economic machine that energizes our national progress.” Some economists called this approach supply-side economics; “I call it common sense,” Reagan wrote in his 1990 autobiography.[iv]
As early as 1964 in his famous television speech for Barry Goldwater, Reagan had sharply criticized the high taxes and large subsidies demanded by America’s welfare state and warned, “No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached one-third of its national income.” As governor of California, he had striven to reduce taxes, even sponsoring a tax limitation amendment to the state constitution which had been narrowly defeated. Reagan was a supply-sider, wrote Ed Meese, his long-time colleague, “long before the term was invented.”[v]
The conviction “that the size of the economic pie must be increased, not simply sliced differently” was fundamental to supply-siders. For Jack Kemp and others, this was a far more appealing message than the “balance the budget” imperative usually associated with Republicans. The “bibles” of this new economic gospel were Jude Wanniski’s The Way the World Works, published in 1978, and George Gilder’s Wealth and Poverty, published in 1981. It had first been proposed legislatively in 1977 by Kemp and Senator William Roth of Delaware with their 30 percent tax cut. But supply-side economics was far more than tax cuts — it envisioned a world “stripped of the tax preferences, subsidies and economic regulations” that were “strangling” the economy.[vi]
It would take fireside chats with the American people, deals with boll-weevil Democrats in the House of Representatives, pep talks with discouraged aides, and even near death from an attempted assassination, but on August 17, 1981, President Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Act (ERTA) into law. It was the tax reform Reagan had been urging for decades. Newsweek called it a “second New Deal potentially as profound in its import as the first was a half century ago.”[vii]
I am starting a series today on the legacy of death that Jack Kevorkian had. He chose to lengthen his own life while ending the life of others (many were physically able to live much longer).
Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, known as “Dr. Death” for helping more than 100 people end their lives, died early on Friday at age 83, his lawyer said.
Kevorkian died at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, where he had been hospitalized for about two weeks with kidney and heart problems, said Mayer Morganroth, Kevorkian’s attorney and friend.
Kevorkian, a pathologist, was focused on death and dying long before he became a defiant advocate, crossing Michigan in the rusty Volkswagen van that carried his machine to help sick people end their lives.
He launched his assisted-suicide campaign in 1990, allowing an Alzheimer’s patient to kill herself using a machine he had devised. He beat Michigan prosecutors four times before his conviction for second-degree murder in 1999.
Kevorkian was imprisoned for eight years for second-degree murder and was paroled in 2007. As a condition of his parole, he vowed not to assist in any suicides.
He was convicted after a CBS News program aired showing a video of Kevorkian administering lethal drugs to a 52-year-old man suffering from debilitating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The Armenian American Kevorkian did not leave the public eye after his exit from prison in 2007, giving occasional lectures and in 2008 running for Congress unsuccessfully.
An HBO documentary on his life “Kevorkian” and a movie “You Don’t Know Jack” starring Al Pacino brought him back into the news last year.
In a June 2010 interview with Reuters Television, the right-to-die activist said he was afraid of death as much as anyone else and said the world had a hypocritical attitude toward voluntary euthanasia, or assisted suicide.
“Now we’ve avoided death because we don’t like death. Religion says that’s a big enemy, leave it alone. But we went beyond birth, into conception. Now we’re dabbling in that,” he said.
“If we can aid people into coming into the world, why can’t we aid them in exiting the world?”
(Reporting by Mike Miller; Editing by Greg McCune)
(This article has been modified to correct the seventh paragraph to make clear Dr. Kevorian was Armenian American, not born in Armenia)
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Mark Heard in his article in March of 1997 in Christianity Today sums up Francis Schaeffer’s view of the world and how it held true 13 years after Schaeffer’s 1984 death:
some critics have recently allowed that his big picture has proven durable. The conceptual centerpiece of Schaeffer’s historical view is the triumph of relativism in the modern post-Christian world: “Modern men, in the absence of absolutes, have polluted all aspects of morality, making standards completely hedonistic and relativistic.” He would not have been surprised by the advent of “postmodern” thought, which has built countless altars to relativism across the intellectual landscape. Nor would he have been surprised by the resultant moral vacuum that characterizes much contemporary academic thinking. In a recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, anthropologist Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban agonized over the fact that her discipline’s prime directive—cultural relativism—left her with no rationale for opposing rape or racial genocide in other cultures. One can almost hear Francis Schaeffer saying, “I told you so.”
In particular, he appears to have been prescient on the issue of human life. In 1976 he observed that “in regard to the fetus, the courts have arbitrarily separated ‘aliveness’ from ‘personhood,’ and if this is so, why not arbitrarily do the same with the aged? So the steps move along, and euthanasia may well become increasingly acceptable. And if so, why not keep alive the bodies of … persons in whom the brain wave is flat to harvest from them body parts and blood?” Schaeffer’s bleak vision is now daily news. “Cadaver Jack” Kevorkian has already killed more people than Ted Bundy, but the state of Michigan cannot muster the political will to stop him. A federal court has forbidden the state of Washington to pass laws preventing doctors from killing their patients, while the University of Washington is permitted to scavenge and sell the body parts of thousands of aborted children every year.
This video takes you to the United Estates–a gated community in sunny Florida–to help you understand the impact of Congress decision to annually raise our nations debt limit without addressing the out-of-control spending that keeps us buried in debt.
The first thing I intend to do is join the tea party. Then I’m going to refuse to raise my debt limit. Then I’m going to call the Visa people…
“Thank you, and remember: Vote Palin-Bachmann.”
You are thinking this is absurd. You are right, of course.
But you are not intellectually entitled to call it absurd if you are among the seven in 10 Americans telling pollsters you don’t want the federal government’s debt ceiling raised. You are not intellectually entitled if you are one of these right-wing politicians pandering to this tea-drunken grandstand by threatening to vote not to raise it.
Here is how real fiscal responsibility works: You repay the debt that you have incurred to date. You make spending reductions prospectively by showing sufficient discipline to reduce the future pace at which you incur debt. You dare not let your existing debt go unpaid lest your credit score suffer and you get denied the next time you find yourself in a bit of a pinch and need to finance a refrigerator at Sears.
I think the answer to this is simple. We must have deep cuts in the budget in order to get enough Republicans on board to raise the debt ceiling. Several Democrats agree with this too.
More than 150 economists back House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner’s call to match any increase in the debt limit with spending cuts of equal size, according to a letter released by the Republican leader’s office on Wednesday.
The letter will give Boehner an important talking point as he and his fellow House Republicans meet with President Barack Obama at 10 a.m. to discuss the debt limit and other fiscal issues.
“An increase in the national debt limit that is not accompanied by significant spending cuts and budget reforms to address our government’s spending addiction will harm private-sector job creation in America,” the letter said.
Signatories include Nobel laureate Robert Mundell of Columbia University and economists from schools like New York University and Georgetown University, as well as conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute.
The Treasury Department has warned that the country could face a default that could push it back into recession and roil markets across the globe if it does not raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit by Aug 2. Treasury has been tapping federal employee pensions and other funds to pay the nation’s bills since it reached the current debt limit on May 16.
Republicans say they will not back any increase that does not include steep spending cuts and other limits to ensure that debt stays at a manageable level.
Michael D. Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution. Here is a portion of this recent article:
Now that Osama bin Laden has been successfully dispatched to the eternal damnation he so richly deserves, Washington is ready to return to the more mundane question of whether the Obama administration will be allowed to spend this country into oblivion.
The next big fiscal fight will be over when and how to increase the debt limit. The administration has been hard at work trying to shape the message and public opinion. Unsurprisingly, much of that message is less than 100 percent accurate. Here are some myths about the debt ceiling and the upcoming debate about raising it:
5. Only Republicans oppose raising the debt ceiling. The media and the administration want to turn this into a partisan fight. The ongoing narrative is that radical Republicans in thrall to the Tea Party want to wreck our finances, while Democrats responsibly want to pay our bills. In truth, a number of prominent Democrats are on record opposing a debt-limit increase without substantial reductions in spending. They include Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.), Mark Pryor (D., Ark.), and Joe Manchin (D., W. Va.). Even Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) normally a reliable liberal vote, has been expressing ambivalence. And the most prominent spending limit liable to be offered as a condition for raising the limit, the CAP Amendment proposed by Sen. Bob Corker (R. Tenn.) is cosponsored by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.). The real story is that a small group of extreme liberals wants to keep spending more in the face of bipartisan opposition.
So far, Republicans have not been very good about presenting their message. If they want to win this fight, they are going to have to do a lot more to correct the record.
Below info from ReasonTV:
Some say the world will end in fire and some say in ice.
But in Washington, a lot of people say it will end if we don’t continually raise the debt ceiling.
The statutory debt limit, or debt ceiling, represents the maximum amount of debt the federal government can carry at any given time. The limit was created in 1917 so that Congress wouldn’t have to vote every time the government wanted to increase the amount of debt (which was becoming a more and more frequent occasion). Since then, the Treasury Department has had the authority to issue new debt up to whatever the limit is to fund government needs. Last year, the limit was raised to $14.3 trillion, an amount that is about to reached.
As it approaches, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said failing to raise the limit would likely mean the U.S. would default on its debt, creating “real chaos” in place of the fake chaos that’s out there now. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said that failing to raise the limit would be “deeply irresponsible” and and Austan Goolsbee, President Obama’s chief economic adviser, has said that not raising the limit would create “the first default in history caused purely by insanity.”
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This is Sam Newman on revelations that the successful Qatar bid for the 2022 World Cup was heavily influenced by corruption within FIFA.
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The United States could still host the 2022 World Cup after soccer’s governing body continued to be plagued by a deep-rooted bribery scandal that has rocked the sport to its core.
The American bid to host the tournament ended in disappointment in December, when members of governing body FIFA’s executive committee made the shocking decision to award the event to Qatar, a tiny Arab state with a population of fewer than two million people.
However, a storm of controversy has erupted around FIFA in the past week, reaching a head when it was revealed that general secretary Jerome Valcke wrote in an email that Qatar had “bought the World Cup.”
FILE – In this May 18, 2011 fi… AP – May 31, 3:16 pm EDT
Soccer fans in the States may get to help host the 2022 World Cup after all. Suspicions about how Qatar had gathered the necessary support and outwitted the United States, Australia, Japan and South Korea immediately flared up, and were raised again in May when Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper presented evidence that claimed to show bribes had been paid in exchange for votes.
Influential FIFA member Theo Zwanziger, president of the German Football Federation, demanded on Wednesday that Qatar be stripped of its hosting rights pending a full investigation – and that a new vote should be taken if any corrupt activity is unearthed.
“There is a certain degree of suspicion that one cannot sweep aside,” Zwanziger told the BBC. “I must expect that awarding this World Cup under these conditions needs to be examined anew.”
The scandal has intensified over the past week as FIFA president Sepp Blatter survived a fraught battle to win another four-year term in office but only after his lone rival, Qatar’s Mohamed bin Hammam, was suspended pending an investigation into alleged corrupt payments made to soccer officials in the Caribbean.
FIFA vice president Jack Warner was also suspended in connection with the same matter but then came out fighting, accusing Blatter himself of making unauthorized cash payments and gifts of computers to officials associated with CONCACAF, the North American and Caribbean confederation of which the United States is a part.
Blatter, a 75-year-old Swiss executive who has been in office since 1998, was handed a final four-year term in a vote at FIFA’s congress. He received 186 out of 203 votes.
Although Blatter remains in control, he was forced to announce widespread changes to appease FIFA’s sponsors and a furious worldwide soccer public. From now on, each of FIFA’s 208 members will receive a vote on where future World Cups will be held, rather than a select 24-man executive committee.
Significantly, the full FIFA Congress will also be given power to elect members of the governing body’s Ethics Committee, which oversees FIFA conduct and would ultimately be responsible for any decision to order a fresh vote on the 2022 World Cup. That move, in particular, will give U.S. Soccer great hope and cause grave concern in the Qatar camp.
The United States put up a strong challenge to host the 2022 tournament, reaching the final round of voting before Qatar prevailed 14-8. If a revote was ordered, the American federation would be a strong favorite, with Australia its primary challenger.
The political shenanigans have naturally gained far greater media coverage in countries other than the United States, where soccer is more ingrained in the public psyche. But if the sport’s hour of darkness shakes out into a satisfactory conclusion, there may be no bigger winner than the United States.
Sam Newman on Qatar World Cup (23-05-2011) This is Sam Newman on revelations that the successful Qatar bid for the 2022 World Cup was heavily influenced by corruption within FIFA. ____________________________ Martin Rogers reported June 1, 2011 for Yahoo Sports: The United States could still host the 2022 World Cup after soccer’s governing body continued […]
Today we debate the #7 player in the world. Everette: Zinedine Zidane is the 7th best player and he might be better, but I had to punish him for the headbutt in the world cup. Zinedine Zidane Top 10 Goals Wilson: Ronaldinho– He helped his team win the 2002 World Cup, and he has always […]
Today’s debate is about the 8th best soccer player ever!!!!! Wilson: Lothar Herbert Matthaus- He won the 1990 W0rld Cup and he was the best player on the team. He defeated some great legends like Diego Maradona. He is the most talented German soccer player ever. Lothar Herbert Matthäus – goles ______________________________________ Everette: I went […]
Today the debate is over the 9th best player of all time. Wilson: Zico- Although he never won the World Cup, he still led the Brazilian team to many great victories. He is one of the all time greats. Zico Goals – Gols do Zico Everette: I have to go with Landon Donovan because he is the […]
This is a fun series that my son Wilson and I are starting today about the greatest soccer players of all time. Today we will discuss the list below and then give our 10th best player and later we will give #9. Wilson: 10 David Beckham- There is no one who can curve the ball […]
Mohamed Bin Hammam of Qatar Mohamed Bin Hammam of Qatar is pictured through the window of a limousine upon his arrival at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich May 29, 2011. The USA came in 2nd for the 2022 World Cup, and hopefully we now have a chance to re-bid for it. We have more stadiums […]
Reuters reported today: FIFA hit by “bought” World Cup claim By Mike Collett – 1 hr 36 mins ago ZURICH (Reuters) – Accusations that Qatar bought the right to stage the 2022 World Cup deepened the corruption crisis at the heart of FIFA on Monday just as an apparently unscathed Sepp Blatter prepared to claim another term as president. World soccer’s […]
Image Credit: Sarah Lee/eyevine
The Daily Hatch 