Yearly Archives: 2011

Responding to Oppenneimer and Lizza:Defending Francis Schaeffer’s influence on believers such as Michele Bachmann(Part 10)

September 9, 2011 – 7:59 am

Both Oppenneimer and Lizza have attacked Francis Schaeffer’s view, but the way to know his views best is to take time to watch his film series. I said that in my first post and I will continue to show all ten episodes of his film series “How should we then live?”

This is a series of posts concerning presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and her religious beliefs. Particularly I will be looking at the identity of Francis Schaeffer who Michele said had major impact on her views. I also would say that Francis Schaeffer was the greatest christian philosopher of the 20th century. 

In 1979 I first watched the film series “How should we then live?” and it was so impressive to me that I returned to my high school with permission from my former teacher to view the series again. In fact, Mr. Brink would tell the seniors at Evangelical Christian School in  Cordova, TN something to this affect: “I hope you realize how important this film series by Dr. Francis Schaeffer is. Here we have Everette Hatcher who is in college now, but he is coming back to see this film again because he knows how valuable it is.”

The best way to understand Michele Bachmann’s worldview is to watch the film series “How should we then live?” by Francis Schaeffer. I have provided a 30 minute episode at the end of this post with a written outline.  In this film series the humanist worldview is seen as weak because it is not able to give adequate answers to life’s tough questions while the christian worldview can.  Humanism has a finite base because it is limited to finite man while the Christian worldview is based on information provided by the infinite-personal God of the Bible.

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Excellent article by Ross Douthat:

August 31, 2011, 9:48 pm <!– — Updated: 9:52 pm –>

Misreading Francis Schaeffer

The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza has posted a response to my criticisms of the way his recent profile of Michele Bachmann portrayed the evangelical writer and activist Francis Schaeffer. In his post, Lizza attempts to justify his article’s claim that Schaeffer’s 198o book “A Christian Manifesto” urges “the violent overthrow of the government if Roe v. Wade isn’t reversed.” I had disputed this point, noting that Schaeffer only urged Christians to consider acts of non-violent civil disobedience against the post-Roe abortion regime (offering examples like the non-payment of taxes and public sit-ins), while explicitly warning his readers against an “overreaction [that] crosses the line from force to violence.” Lizza counters that Schaeffer did write that actual political violence was sometimes justified, citing this passage from the “Manifesto” as an example:

There does come a time when force, even physical force, is appropriate. The Christian is not to take the law into his own hands and become a law unto himself. But when all avenues to flight and protest have closed, force in the defensive posture is appropriate. This was the situation of the American Revolution. The colonists used force in defending themselves. Great Britain, because of its policy toward the colonies, was seen as a foreign power invading America. The colonists defended their homeland. As such, the American Revolution was a conservative counter-revolution. The colonists saw the British as the revolutionaries trying to overthrow the legitimate colonial governments.

A true Christian in Hitler’s Germany and in the occupied countries should have defied the false and counterfeit state and hidden his Jewish neighbors from German SS troops. The government had abrogated its authority, and it had no right to make any demands.

This brings us to a current issue that is crucial for the future of the church in the United States—the issue of abortion …

Lizza also cites the following passage, which again invokes the case of the American revolution:

The thirteen colonies concluded that the time had come and they disobeyed. We must understand that for Rutherford and Locke, and for the Founding Fathers, the bottom line was not an abstract point of conversation over a tea table; at a creation point it had to be acted upon. The thirteen colonies reached the bottom line: they acted in civil disobedience. That civil disobedience led to open war in which men and women died. And that led to the founding of the United States of America. There would have been no founding of the United States of America without the Founding Fathers’ realization that there is a bottom line. And to them the basic bottom line was not pragmatic; it was on of principle.

These and other examples lead Lizza to conclude that while “Schaeffer was sometimes coy about the case he was making and the obvious conclusions he was reaching,” those conclusions pointed inexorably toward violent revolution:

Schaeffer advocates beginning with non-lethal means: legislation, legal attacks in the courts, political action against abortion providers, and sit-ins in legislatures and courts. But if the reader has been paying attention, he knows that this is all just a warm-up for more severe measures if these fail.

But Lizza is misreading Schaeffer’s argument. To the extent that his book even hints at “more severe measures,” they aren’t being recommended if civil disobedience fails. Rather, he’s suggesting that Christians have the right to consider using “defensive force” in situations where civil disobedience isn’t permitted — as in Nazi Germany in the 1940s, or in British-occupied Boston in the 1770s. That’s the point of the line about “when all avenues to flight and protest have closed,” and it’s the point of the paragraph that follows immediately after the second one quoted above:

Please read most thoughtfully what I am going to say in the next sentence: If there is no final place for civil disobedience, then the government has been made autonomous, and as such, it has been put in the place of the Living God. If there is no final place for civil disobedience, then the government has been put in the place of the Living God, because then you are to obey it even when it tells you in its own way at that time to worship Caesar. And that point is exactly where the early Christians performed their acts of civil disobedience even when it cost them their lives.

If there is no final place for civil disobedience. In other words, when Schaeffer discusses situations when “force in the defensive posture” may be appropriate, he’s giving his readers advice for a hypothetical authoritarian situation in the future, not for the democratic present. (And note that even when he’s talking about resisting authoritarianism, he reaches for two explicitly non-violent examples — the martyrdom of the early Christians, and the righteous Gentiles who hid their Jewish neighbors during the Nazi era — to supplement his references to the American Revolution.) He never urges “severe measures” as a legitimate response to Roe v. Wade itself, or implies that violence might be justified if the pro-life movement fails to overturn the decision. (Indeed, as Lizza himself allows, Schaeffer specifically worries that some of “many kooky people around” will misinterpret his support for civil disobedience as a warrant for violence.) Rather, he cites that the Roe decision as a symptom of a creeping illiberalism in American politics that might eventually make genuine civil disobedience impossible, forcing Christians to choose between martyrdom and revolt.

Was the late-in-life Schaeffer much too paranoid about the dangers of creeping secular authoritarianism in the United States? Absolutely. Is it fair for Lizza to link his Reagan-era paranoia to the paranoia that’s sometimes manifested by figures like Bachmann today? I would say yes again. (Though such paranoia can be a bipartisan temptation …) But is it fair to accuse Schaeffer of urging “the violent overthrow of the government if Roe v. Wade isn’t reversed”? Once again, the answer is no.

 

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E P I S O D E 1 0

How Should We Then Live 10#1

FINAL CHOICES

I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option

One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes.

A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes.

B. But society has to be led by an elite: John Kenneth Galbraith, Robert Theobald.

C. Daniel Bell’s prophecy of technocratic elite.

D. Bell’s warning of cultural contradiction: no absolute ethic to accompany absolute power.

II. Nature of the New Authoritarianism

A. Do not think of the model of Hitler and Stalin.

B. Probably a manipulative, authoritarian elite.

III. Possible Forms of Manipulation

A. Review from Episode Six: Koestler—chemical agents; Krantz—birth control in world’s drinking supply; Clark—political leaders should take anti-aggression pills; Lee—psychological tests for public officials; Skinner—reinforcers to modify behavior.

B. Genetic condition: Francis Crick.

1. He advocates:

a) That some group of people is to decide who should be the parents of the next generation and who should be born.

b) That some group of people should determine what kind of people they want in the future and will set out genetically to make them.

2. Once Man is no longer seen as made in God’s image, there is no reason not to “tinker” with Man genetically.

C. The mass media.

1. TV conditions by selective editing. Illustration: simulated riot filmed in San Jose.

2. No collusion needed if views of elite and newsmakers coincide. Media not monolithic, but total control not needed to achieve manipulation.

IV Authoritarianism in Government. Illustration: United States

A. The dilemma of people who speak out for civil liberties but are also committed to the government’s having a responsibility to solve every problem.

B. Christian freedoms without Christian base produce chaos.

C. In the United States an authoritarian, manipulating government could come from the administrative (executive) side, the legislature, or from the courts functioning on variable, sociological law.

V. Threat of Authoritarianism

A. Leftist or Rightist authoritarianism are only two roads to the same end.

B. With the loss of Christian consensus, no reason for young or old committed to apathy not to give in if promised personal peace and affluence.

C. Roman bridge simile: humanist values collapse under pressure.

D. Some overwhelming pressures which progressively tend to prepare modern people to accept a manipulative, authoritarian government:

1. Economic breakdown.

a) Spiral of inflation leads to economic recession.

b) Fear of economic breakdown swamps concern for liberty.

2. Random violence and political terrorism. Fear can be so great than any compromise is worth security.

3. Threat of War between the West and expansionist Communist Block. Fear of war opens the way for many to accept authoritarianism as lesser evil.

4. World food shortage and change in world distribution of wealth and goods.

a) Threat of lower living standards alters basic attitudes.

b) Authoritarianism more likely to be accepted in a descending spiral of prosperity and a country’s place of power.

E. As in the days of Caesar Augustus (Episode One), authoritarianism is most easily accepted if it is brought in while seeming to keep the outward forms of constitutionality.

VI. Two Alternatives to Chaos:

Either authoritarianism—or society’s affirming once again the original source of freedom, God’s revelation in the Bible, and His revelation through Christ.

A. Reconsidering the second alternative.

1. Nonpragmatic nature of biblical Christianity.

a) Christianity not a superior utilitarianism to mend society; Christianity is truth that gives a unity to all of knowledge and all of life.

b) Stems from the infinite-personal God who exists and who was the Maker of the heavens and the earth.

c) The acceptance of Christ as Savior and Lord, living under the absolutes which the Bible gives.

d) Christians have a responsibility to influence society across its whole spectrum and the entire spectrum of life.

e) Christians can influence consensus without being a majority.

2. The message of Paul to the Greek and Roman world applied.

a) Classical-humanist answers insufficient.

b) World is guilty of suppressing God’s truth and living accordingly. The universe and its form and the mannishness of Man speak the same truth that the Bible gives in greater detail.

c) Biblical Christianity is a message that people can return to God on the basis of Christ’s work alone, but it also gives the base for form and freedom in society.

d) It is this which can give us a hope for the future.

e) It is either this or an imposed order.

B. A reminder about presuppositions.

1. People act out their thoughts, whether they know it or not.

2. All depends on the world view one accepts and lives upon.

Questions

1. The theory of human biological manipulation, granted its premises, is entirely consistent. Outline these premises and the way in which various programs of manipulation are derived from them.

2. In a world moving steadily towards authoritarian regimes, does the relative slowness of Western democracies to lose their freedoms increase or decrease the likelihood of the West’s political survival? Give reasons.

3. Can you think of ways in which you and your church’s attitudes to society betray the utilitarian approach to the world? Does this approach reflect ignorance about the Truth and guilt about our failure to live it? What is the alternative approach and what does it reflect?

Key Events and Persons

Paul’s speech in Athens: c. A.D. 53

Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: c. A.D. 60

J.K. Galbraith: 1908-

Francis Crick: 1916-

Daniel Bell: 1919-

The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society: 1973

Robert Theobald: 1929-

Further Study

As an exercise, you might find it valuable to collect clippings which deal with the subjects discussed and see what attitudes are betrayed by the authors. To pool such clippings in a group for the purpose of joint examination would be very illuminating.

Daniel Boorstin, The Image (1961).

Jacques Ellul, Propaganda (1965).

Francis Crick, Of Molecules and Men (1967).

Francis Crick, Origins of the Genetic Code (1968).

Gordon R. Taylor, The Biological Time-Bomb (1969).

Daniel Bell, The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society (1973).

E.M.B. Green, Evangelism in the Early Church (1970).

Francis A. Schaeffer, Death in the City (1969).

Nevil Shute, On the Beach (1952).

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Communism: A Legacy of Terror (1975).

Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences (1965.)

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Taking up for Francis Schaeffer’s book Christian Manifesto

I have made it clear from day one when I started this blog that Francis Schaeffer, Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan and Adrian Rogers had been the biggest influences on my political and religious views. Today I am responding to an unfair attack on Francis Schaeffer’s book “A Christian Manifesto.” As you can see on the […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 6 “The Scientific Age”

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Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 5 “The Revolutionary Age”

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How Should We Then Live 1-1 Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why it fell. It fell because of inward [..

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Comments (0)

Video and Transcript of Bachmann rebuttal to Obama speech

September 9, 2011 – 7:49 am

Outstanding rebuttal by Michele Bachmann to President Obama’s speech of September 8, 2011:

Unfortunately, it seems, every time the President speaks, his policies have cost the American people jobs and future prosperity.

Tonight the President under the veil of one of the most sacred deliberative forums, a joint session of Congress, delivered another political speech where he doubled down on more of the same policies that are killing the economy.

Mr. President, what among your proposals was new? What here hasn’t already been tried and failed before?

While the President’s speech comes on the heels of a trillion dollars of failed stimulus, bailouts, and temporary gimmicks aimed at creating jobs, the President continued to cling to the idea that government is the solution to creating jobs.

My conservative colleagues and I have been fighting over the last two and half years for pro growth policies.

I stand here tonight to say to the President, not only should Congress not pass your plan, I say, “stop; your last plan hasn’t worked, it’s hurting the American economy.” Instead of temporary fixes, do what has proved to work in the past, permanent pro growth policies that are driven by the free market.”

Today, unemployment is 9.1 percent. Job creation has literally been zeroed out with the worst jobs report in 66 years this last month. Since the President’s failed trillion dollar stimulus we have lost over 2.5 million jobs while adding 416,000 government jobs. One in six Americans is now on food stamps, and the average time unemployed Americans are out of work is greater than 40 weeks. Housing values have fallen 19% from 2008 to the first quarter of this year. GDP growth was an anemic .4% in the first quarter and at 1% in the last and the dollar has lost 12 percent of its value.

These are not good times for the American people. Our patience for speeches, gimmicks and excuses has run out.

The only remedies the President knows are temporary, government directed fixes. And even if the President’s plan passes, we already know it will fail. In practice, we haven’t paid for his last trillion dollar jobs program and now his latest plan would have us embrace potentially over $400 billion in new government spending!

Spending taxpayer dollars on extending unemployment benefits has proved to add only 25 cents to GDP for every dollar we spend. Even the President’s new economic advisor agrees that extending unemployment benefits discourages future employment. Spending taxpayer dollars on extending the payroll tax holiday will reduce over 111 billion dollars to the Social Security trust fund this year and continuation of this policy will put social security checks to seniors at even greater risk. Spending taxpayer dollars on more infrastructure projects failed to create lasting jobs in the last stimulus.

And, looming on the horizon is the full scale implementation of Obamacare that, according the Congressional Budget Office, will kill 800,000 jobs and steal over 500 billion from Medicare.

Candidate Obama promised to wipe out deficits and the debt. Instead the President has increased the debt by over 6 trillion dollars, and what do we have to show for it? Permanent increases in the size of government, spending and debt, with a greater dependency on government.

Four years ago President Bush’s deficit was around 160 billion dollars; today, President Obama’s is nearly ten times that amount.

The President and Vice-President’s plan to spend us to prosperity has failed. And worse, they have stolen from a generation of Americans yet unborn, the consequences of which mean a near certainty of reduced choices and a dramatically downsized lifestyle for future generations from what we enjoy today.

Generational theft is a moral and ethical issue, and I care deeply about both the present generation and generations to come.

The President is politically paralyzed and philosophically incapable of doing what needs to be done.

I do agree, the President should take immediate action. But it is the nine following steps that will put us on a path to economic growth and put Americans back to work;

1) Repatriate American business dollars earned from overseas,

2) Massively cut spending and the size of government,

3) Repeal Obamacare, which is the government takeover of America’s healthcare system,

4) Cut taxes, including corporate taxes,

5) Repeal Dodd-Frank,

6) Repeal job killing regulations,

7) Increase exports by finalizing free trade agreements,

8) Spur new investment in America, inspire innovation,

9) Provide job creating energy solutions, including decreased regulations on developing new energy supplies from our abundant domestic energy resources.

The way forward needs to be based on permanent solutions grounded in the private sector. That is how we will once again restore economic prosperity to our country.

God Bless the United States of America.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Responding to Oppenneimer and Lizza:Defending Francis Schaeffer’s influence on believers such as Michele Bachmann(Part 9)

September 9, 2011 – 7:16 am

Both Oppenneimer and Lizza have attacked Francis Schaeffer’s view, but the way to know his views best is to take time to watch his film series. I said that in my first post and I will continue to show all ten episodes of his film series “How should we then live?”

This is a series of posts concerning presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and her religious beliefs. Particularly I will be looking at the identity of Francis Schaeffer who Michele said had major impact on her views. I also would say that Francis Schaeffer was the greatest christian philosopher of the 20th century.

In 1979 I first watched the film series “How should we then live?” and it was so impressive to me that I returned to my high school with permission from my former teacher to view the series again. In fact, Mr. Brink would tell the seniors at Evangelical Christian School in  Cordova, TN something to this affect: “I hope you realize how important this film series by Dr. Francis Schaeffer is. Here we have Everette Hatcher who is in college now, but he is coming back to see this film again because he knows how valuable it is.”

The best way to understand Michele Bachmann’s worldview is to watch the film series “How should we then live?” by Francis Schaeffer. I have provided a 30 minute episode at the end of this post with a written outline.  In this film series the humanist worldview is seen as weak because it is not able to give adequate answers to life’s tough questions while the christian worldview can.  Humanism has a finite base because it is limited to finite man while the Christian worldview is based on information provided by the infinite-personal God of the Bible.

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The Great Christian Philosopher Francis Schaeffer’s Son, Franky Schaeffer, Slams Conservative Evangelical Christians on MSNBC Like Never Before – Is He Right?

July 7, 2011 5:45 AM
In a segment on the religiosity of Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, MSNBC’s Richard Lui on Wednesday looked to an author who has smeared conservative Christians as “radical,” weird individuals who “hate” America.
The guest host for Martin Bashir interviewed Frank Schaeffer, a blogger on the liberal Huffington Post website and also a constant critic of the religious right. Schaeffer, the son of a conservative theologian, excoriated conservatives: “But, I came to understand that these people actually hate the United States as it is.”
Lui never pointed out Schaeffer’s liberal leanings or his endorsement of Barack Obama in 2008. The author and blogger warned of apocalyptic dangers, should Bachmann be elected president: “She comes from a wing of the evangelical movement where takes the Bible literally, and that includes the Old Testament that has passages about stoning gay people to death and all the rest of it.”
Apparently, if the Republican Congresswoman wins the White House, she “would produce a theocracy in the country where the Bible would be paramount and no longer the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.”
Lui didn’t call Schaeffer on his apparent contradiction. Just a few minutes after the above quote, the writer suggested that when Christian Republican candidates come into office, “the only people they actually serve is Wall Street, and- and- and so really the social issues are a red herring…”
Schaeffer was appearing, partly, to promote his book, “Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible’s Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics–and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway.” (Lui awkwardly read the whole title.)
In July of 2010, Schaeffer, whose family helped promote the pro-life movement in the ’70s, asserted that some of the “nuttiest” evangelicals support Israel.

E P I S O D E 9

How Should We Then Live 9#1

T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce

I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought

II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads to Pessimism

Regarding a Meaning for Life and for Fixed Values

A. General acceptance of selfish values (personal peace and affluence) accompanied rejection of Christian consensus.

1. Personal peace means: I want to be left alone, and I don’t care what happens to the man across the street or across the world. I want my own life-style to be undisturbed regardless of what it will mean — even to my own children and grandchildren.

2. Affluence means things, things, things, always more things — and success is seen as an abundance of things.

B. Students wish to escape meaninglessness of much of adult society.

1. Watershed was Berkeley in 1964.

2. Drug Taking as an ideology: “turning on” the world.

3. Free Speech Movement on Sproul Plaza.

a) At first neither Left nor Right.

b) Soon became the New Left.

(1) Followed Marcuse.

(2) Paris riots.

4. Student analysis of problem was right, but solution wrong.

5. Woodstock, Altamont, and the end of innocence.

6. Drug taking survives the death of ideology but as an escape.

7. Demise of New Left: radical bombings.

8. Apathy supreme. The young accept values of the older generation: their own idea of personal peace and affluence, even though adopting a different life-style.

C. Marxism and Maoism as pseudo-ideals.

1. Vogue for idealistic communism which is another form of leap into the area of non-reason.

2. Solzhenitsyn: violence and expediency as norms of communism.

3. Communist repression in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

4. Communism has neither philosophic nor historic base for freedom. There is no base for “Communism with a human face.”

5. Utopian Marxism steals its talk of human dignity from Christianity.

6. But when it comes to power, the desire of majority has no meaning.

7. Two streams of communism.

a) Those who hold it as an idealistic leap.

b) Old-line communists who hold orthodox communist ideology and bureaucratic structure as it exists in Russia.

8. Many in West might accept communism if it seemed to give peace and affluence.

III. Legal and Political Results of Attempted Human Autonomy

A. Relativistic law.

1. Base for nonarbitrary law gone; only inertia allows a few principles to survive.

2. Holmes and sociological (variable) law.

3. Sociological law comes from failure of natural law (see evolution of existential from rationalistic theology).

4. Courts are now generating law.

5. Medical, legal, and historical arbitrariness of Supreme Court ruling on abortion and current abortion practice.

B. Sociological law opens door to racism, abrogation of freedoms,  euthanasia, and so on.

IV. Social Alternatives After Death of Christian Consensus

A. Hedonism? But might is right when pleasures conflict.

B. Without external absolute, majority vote is absolute. But this justifies a Hitler.

V. Conclusion

A. If there is no absolute by which to judge society, then society is absolute.

B. Humanist thinking—making the individual and mankind the center of all things (autonomous) — has led to death in our culture and in our political life.

Note: Social alternatives after the death of Christian consensus are continued in Episode Ten.

Questions

1. What was the basic cause of campus unrest in the sixties? What has happened to the campus scene since, and why?

2. What elements — in the life and thought of the communist and noncommunist world alike — suggest a possible base for world agreement?

3. “To prophesy doom about Western society is premature. We are, like all others who have lived in times of great change, too close to the details to see the broader picture. One thing we do know:

Society has always gone on, and the most wonderful epochs have followed the greatest depressions. To suggest that our day is the exception says more about our headache than it does about our head.” Debate.

4. As Dr. Schaeffer shows, many apparently isolated events and options gain new meaning when seen in the context of the whole. How far does your own involvement in business, law, financing, and so on reveal an acquiescence to current values?

Key Events and Persons

Oliver Wendell Holmes: 1841-1935

Herbert Marcuse: 1898-1979

Alexander Solzhenitsyn: 1917-

Hungarian Revolution: 1956

Free Speech Movement: 1964

Czechoslovakian repression: 1968

Woodstock and Altamont: 1969

Radical bombings: 1970

Supreme Court abortion ruling: 1973

Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago: 1973-74

Further Study

Keeping one’s eyes and ears open is the most useful study project: the prevalence of pornographic films and books, more and more suggestive advertising and TV shows, and signs of arbitrary absolutes.

The following books will repay careful reading, and Solzhenitsyn, though long and horrifying, should not be skipped.

Os Guinness, The Dust of Death (1973).

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: Parts I-II (1973), Parts III-IV (1974).

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Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices”

E P I S O D E 1 0 How Should We Then Live 10#1 FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be led by an elite: John Kenneth […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”

E P I S O D E 9 How Should We Then Live 9#1 T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads to Pessimism Regarding a Meaning for Life and for Fixed […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 8 “The Age of Fragmentation”

E P I S O D E 8 How Should We Then Live 8#1 I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas) and Post-Impressionism (Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 7 “The Age of Non-Reason”

E P I S O D E 7 How Should We Then Live 7#1 I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act on his belief that we live […]

Taking up for Francis Schaeffer’s book Christian Manifesto

I have made it clear from day one when I started this blog that Francis Schaeffer, Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan and Adrian Rogers had been the biggest influences on my political and religious views. Today I am responding to an unfair attack on Francis Schaeffer’s book “A Christian Manifesto.” As you can see on the […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 6 “The Scientific Age”

E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in Modern Science. A. Change in conviction from earlier modern scientists.B. From an open to a closed natural system: […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 5 “The Revolutionary Age”

E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live 5-1 I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there was a unique improvement. A. […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 4 “The Reformation”

How Should We Then Live 4-1 I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to how to be right with […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance”

How Should We Then Live 3-1 I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so many problems today with this excellent episode. He noted, “Could have gone either way—with emphasis on real people living in […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 2 “The Middle Ages”

How Should We Then Live 2-1 I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard to authority and the approach to God.” […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 1 “The Roman Age”

How Should We Then Live 1-1 Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why it fell. It fell because of inward [..

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Brett Cummins should turn over the name of his drug dealer!!!!

September 9, 2011 – 6:56 am

KARK’s website includes these words:

Thursday afternoon, Brett Cummins released the following statement to CNN through his attorney:

Brett Cummins is devastated by the tragic death of his friend Dexter Williams and extends his sincere condolences to Dexter’s family.
They remain foremost in his thoughts and prayers. Mr. Cummins deeply regrets the grief this incident has caused those who know him, especially his co-workers and family members.
Mr. Cummins continues to cooperate fully with authorities investigating the circumstances surrounding Mr. Williams’ passing and, like them, looks forward to a conclusion of the inquiry, secure in his own innocence and confident that no foul play was involved.
In an attempt to assist the Maumelle Police Department as they gather information in this regard, and so that all resources can be properly focused, no further public statements will be made at this time.

Brett will not be on the air as he continues mourning the loss of his friend.

___________________

I can understand that Brett (33 yrs old) does not want to mention in his statement that he was drinking heavily and snorting coke with his friends the night that Dexter Williams (24 yrs old) died. However, it seems strange to me that KARK does not run the story the same as the other stations that have exposed all of these facts.

I wish Brett would turn over the name and phone number of his drug dealer to the police. That would be a helpful step to take down the major criminal behind all of this and at the same time it would save many future tragic events from occurring.  

Dexter Paul Williams (facebook photo)

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Attorney: Ark. weatherman innocent in Maumelle death of Dexter Williams

Today’s THV channel 11 in Little Rock reported: MAUMELLE, Ark. (AP) – An attorney for a local meteorologist says no foul play was involved in the death of a 24-year-old Mountain Pine man. Little Rock-based lawyer Mark Hampton said Thursday that KARK meteorologist Brett Cummins is innocent. Authorities say Cummins and the body of 24-year-old […]

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Pictures of Dexter Williams

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Picture of Dexter Williams with link to full police report

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By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Responding to Oppenneimer and Lizza:Defending Francis Schaeffer’s influence on believers such as Michele Bachmann(Part 8)

September 9, 2011 – 6:48 am

Both Oppenneimer and Lizza have attacked Francis Schaeffer’s view, but the way to know his views best is to take time to watch his film series. I said that in my first post and I will continue to show all ten episodes of his film series “How should we then live?”

This is a series of posts concerning presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and her religious beliefs. Particularly I will be looking at the identity of Francis Schaeffer who Michele said had major impact on her views. I also would say that Francis Schaeffer was the greatest christian philosopher of the 20th century. 

In 1979 I first watched the film series “How should we then live?” and it was so impressive to me that I returned to my high school with permission from my former teacher to view the series again. In fact, Mr. Brink would tell the seniors at Evangelical Christian School in  Cordova, TN something to this affect: “I hope you realize how important this film series by Dr. Francis Schaeffer is. Here we have Everette Hatcher who is in college now, but he is coming back to see this film again because he knows how valuable it is.”

The best way to understand Michele Bachmann’s worldview is to watch the film series “How should we then live?” by Francis Schaeffer. I have provided a 30 minute episode at the end of this post with a written outline.  In this film series the humanist worldview is seen as weak because it is not able to give adequate answers to life’s tough questions while the christian worldview can.  Humanism has a finite base because it is limited to finite man while the Christian worldview is based on information provided by the infinite-personal God of the Bible.

____________________________________________

Bill Muehlenberg’s commentary on issues of the day…

On Michele Bachmann » Bill Muehlenberg’s CultureWatch

Michele who? Some of you might be asking this question. If you live in the US you would probably know of her, for at least two reasons. She is one of a number of Republicans seeking the nomination for the presidential race in 2012. But most likely she is fairly well known because of the incredible demonization job being directed at her.

She must be doing something right if she is receiving so much bad press. Indeed, it can almost be taken as a rule of thumb that the more the secular left mainstream media attacks a person, the more likely it is that this person is worth supporting.

Indeed, the more hate the MSM showers on someone, the more likely such a person is worth being aware of. And if there is one thing the left in general and their MSM colleagues hate with a passion, it is conservative, pro-life, pro-faith and pro-family women.

There is probably no greater animus to be found amongst the secular leftists than women who hold to Christian and conservative values. That is why Sarah Palin has been absolutely crucified by the left and their media allies. They hate her with a passion.

But while Palin has not yet announced whether she will run for the presidential race, another conservative Christian woman has: Michele Bachmann. And like Palin, she is not afraid to speak her mind, and she is proud to champion her pro-faith and pro-family credentials.

So she too is being attacked mercilessly by the left. She stands for everything they can’t stand. She thinks marriage and family are vitally important. She is decidedly pro-life. She thinks the Judeo-Christian worldview is what made America and the West great.

Thus she is now public enemy number one in the eyes of the left. I can almost guarantee that if you hear anything about her here in Australia, it will most likely be negative and critical. The leftist MSM here are just as bigoted and biased as they are in the US.

Thus as her name becomes more famous, the more she will be wildly attacked in the Australian media, just like she already is back in her home country. So as I already asked, who is she? She is a 55-year-old politician who was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2006.

Prior to that she was a Republican Senator in the Minnesota State Senate. Last month she announced her Republican presidential nomination bid. And she has been under a tremendous attack ever since. She now knows full well what Palin has had to go through.

It is still early days in terms of which Republicans will be involved in this race, but she has already pipped frontrunner Mitt Romney in some polls. So even though it remains to be seen what the final field will be, I mention all this because of a piece in today’s religious press.

I have already been impressed by Bachmann. She is of course not perfect, and like all the candidates she has various strengths and weaknesses, but what I read today further confirmed in my mind that she may be the best Republican on offer thus far for the top job.

The headline of this story runs as follows: “Christian Writer Francis Schaeffer Shaped Pro-Life Views”. Here is how the report goes: “Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is one of the several pro-life advocates seeking the Republican nomination to face pro-abortion President Barack Obama and she cites Christian writer Francis Schaeffer as an influence on her pro-life views.

“In a campaign stop to speak to local residents at a church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Bachmann shared her testimony and talked about the Christian faith she and her husband share. That faith, which has matured thanks to the writings of Schaeffer, has led Bachman to a pro-life view that has seen her compile a 100% pro-life voting record in Congress and adopt dozens of foster children.

“‘One thing that Dr. Schaeffer said is that [God is] not just the God of theology. He’s not just the God of the Bible,’ Bachmann said, according to the Des Moines Register. ‘Since he is the Creator God, he’s the father of biology, sociology, of political science, of you name the subject. … And that altered our way of thinking, that God had something to say about our career.’

“‘Francis Schaeffer also said that life is the watershed issue of our time, and how we come down on how we view human life will impact all other issues,’ she said. ‘And so Marcus and I decided we didn’t want to be pro-life only, just as speaking… We wanted to live a life of being about pro-life’.

“The Register indicates Bachmann told the audience that, upon the encouragement to put her pro-life views into action, she and her husband began counseling and praying with single mothers and helping them get to pregnancy and adoption centers to provide further practical support instead of abortion.”

Wow, there are not too many presidential candidates who unashamedly acknowledge such Christian heavyweights as Francis Schaeffer and the influence they had. And her willingness to actually get involved in pro-life activism is impressive as well. It is good to see not just pro-life talk here, but pro-life action as well.

For those not familiar with the life and work of Schaeffer, he was a leading Christian pastor, apologist, thinker, and activist, who had a huge influence on the evangelical world for the past half century or so. His ministry in the Swiss Alps called L’Abri had a tremendous impact on countless religious seekers. I wrote up this incredible man and his incredible ministry here:www.billmuehlenberg.com/2009/10/14/notable-christians-francis-schaeffer/

Thus to learn that Bachmann is so heavily influenced by this important Christian is most pleasing, although not really surprising. Bachmann has stuck to her guns despite a tsunami of opposition and criticism, and it is refreshing to find someone not ashamed of her faith and her pro-life commitments.

As stated, we must await to learn of the final field of candidates who are seeking to win the right to stand against Obama. But in terms of important key values, there could not be a greater contrast than between Michele Bachmann and Barrack Hussein Obama.

www.lifenews.com/2011/07/26/bachmann-christian-writer-francis-schaeffer-shaped-pro-life-views/

 

E P I S O D E 8

How Should We Then Live 8#1

I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me.

T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION

I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought

A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas) and Post-Impressionism (Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat): appearance and reality.

1. Problem of reality in Impressionism: no universal.

2. Post-Impression seeks the universal behind appearances.

3. Painting expresses an idea in its own terms as a work of art; to discuss the idea in a painting is not to intellectualize art.

4. Parallel search for universal in art and philosophy; Cézanne.

B. Fragmentation.

1. Extremes of ultra-naturalism or abstraction: Wassily Kandinsky.

2. Picasso leads choice for abstraction: relevance of this choice.

3. Failure of Picasso (like Sartre, and for similar reasons) to be fully consistent with his choice.

C. Retreat to absurdity.

1. Dada , and Marcel Duchamp: art as absurd.

2. Art followed philosophy but came sooner to logical end.

3. Chance in his art technique as an art theory impossible to practice: Pollock.

II. Music As a Vehicle of Modern Thought

A. Non-resolution and fragmentation: German and French streams.

1. Influence of Beethoven’s last Quartets.

2. Direction and influence of Debussy.

3. Schoenberg’s non-resolution; contrast with Bach.

4. Stockhausen: electronic music and concern with the element of change.

B. Cage: a case study in confusion.

1. Deliberate chance and confusion in Cage’s music.

2. Cage’s inability to live the philosophy of his music.

C. Contrast of music-by-chance and the world around us.

1. Inconsistency of indulging in expression of chaos when we acknowledge order for practical matters like airplane design.

2. Art as anti-art when it is mere intellectual statement, divorced from reality of who people are and the fullness of what the universe is.

III. General Culture As the Vehicle of Modern Thought

A. Propagation of idea of fragmentation in literature.

1. Effect of Eliot’s Wasteland and Picasso’s Demoiselles d’ Avignon

compared; the drift of general culture.

2. Eliot’s change in his form of writing when he became a Christian.

3. Philosophic popularization by novel: Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir.

B. Cinema as advanced medium of philosophy.

1. Cinema in the 1960s used to express Man’s destruction: e.g. Blow-up.

2. Cinema and the leap into fantasy:

The Hour of the Wolf, Belle de Jour, Juliet of the Spirits, The Last Year at Marienbad.

3. Bergman’s inability to live out his philosophy (see Cage): Silence and The Hour of the Wolf.

IV. Only on Christian Base Can Reality Be Faced Squarely

Questions

1. Explain what “fragmentation” means, as discussed by Dr. Schaeffer. What does it result from? Give examples of it.

2. Apart from the fact that modern printing and recording processes made the art and music of the past more accessible than ever before, do you think that the preference of many people for the art and music of the past is related to the matters discussed by Dr. Schaeffer? If so, how?

3. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds… With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.” Emerson wrote this over a century ago. Debate.

4. How far do you think that the opinion of some Christians that one should have nothing to do with philosophy, art and novels is a manifestation of the very fragmentation which is characteristic of modern secular thought? Discuss.

Key Events and Persons

Beethoven’s last Quartets: 1825-26

Claude Monet: 1840-1926

Poplars at Giverny, Sunrise: 1885

Paul Cézanne: 1839-1906

The Bathers: c.1905

Claude Debussy: 1862-1918

Wassily Kandinsky: 1866-1944

Arnold Schoenberg: 1874-1951

Picasso: 1881-1973

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon: 1906-7

Marcel Duchamp: 1887-1969

Nude Descending a Staircase: 1912

T.S. Eliot: 1888-1965

The Wasteland: 1922

John Cage: 1912-1992

Music for Marcel Duchamp: 1947

Jackson Pollock: 1912-1956

Karlheinz Stockhausen: 1928-

Sartre’s Nausea: 1938

Beauvoir’s L’Invitée: 1943

Camus’ The Stranger: 1942

Camus’ The Plague: 1947

Resnais’ The Last Year at Marienbad: 1961

Bergman’s The Silence: 1963

Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits: 1965

Antonioni’s Blow-Up: 1966

Bergman’s The Hour of the Wolf: 1967

Buñel’s Belle de Jour: 1967

Further Study

Perhaps you have seen some of the films mentioned. You should try to see them if you haven’t.Watch for them in local art-film festivals, on TV, or in campus film series. They rarely return nowadays to the commercial circuit. The sex and violence which they treated philosophically have now taken over the screen in a more popular and crude form! Easier of access are the philosophic novels of Sartre, Camus and de Beauvoir. Read the titles Dr. Schaeffer mentions. Again, for the artwork and music mentioned, consult libraries and record shops. But spend time here—let the visual images and the musical sounds sink in.

Listening patiently to Cage and Webern, for example, will tell you more than volumes of musicology.

T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland (many editions, usually in collections of his verse).

Joseph Machlis, Introduction to Contemporary Music (1961).

H.R. Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture (1970).

Donald J. Drew, Images of Man (1974).

Colin Wilson, The Outsider (1956).

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By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 37)

September 9, 2011 – 12:17 am

Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 37)

This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, but from a liberal.

Rep. Emanuel Clever (D-Mo.) called the newly agreed-upon bipartisan compromise deal to raise the  debt limit “a sugar-coated satan sandwich.”

“This deal is a sugar-coated satan sandwich. If you lift the bun, you will not like what you see,” Clever tweeted on August 1, 2011.

August 1, 2011

Rep. Harris Votes Against the Debt Ceiling “Deal” 

Washington, DC – Today, Rep. Andy Harris voted against the debt ceiling increase. The plan did not require passage of a balanced budget amendment, which Rep. Harris feels is essential to bringing permanent common sense accountability to Washington.

“A balanced budget amendment is the only way to make sure the federal government spends what it takes in and lives within its means,” said Rep. Andy Harris.  “Over the past few weeks I have repeatedly voted for reasonable proposals to raise the debt ceiling that included passage of a balanced budget amendment. But I didn’t come to Washington to continue writing blank checks. Maryland’s families and job creators sent me to Congress to permanently change the way Washington does business.  I appreciate Speaker Boehner’s remarkable, historic efforts to craft a proposal to solve the debt ceiling issue.  But today’s debt ceiling deal just doesn’t go far enough to build an environment for job creation by requiring passage of a balanced budget amendment to bring permanent common sense accountability to Washington.”

Currently, the U.S. Government has a national debt of $14.3 trillion and runs an annual deficit of $1.65 trillion.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Comments (0)

Friedman Friday:(“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 1 of 7)

September 9, 2011 – 12:09 am

Friedman Friday:(“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 1 of 7)

Volume 4 – From Cradle to Grave
Abstract:
Since the Depression years of the 1930s, there has been almost continuous expansion of governmental efforts to provide for people’s welfare. First, there was a tremendous expansion of public works. The Social Security Act followed close behind. Soon other efforts extended governmental activities in all areas of the welfare sector. Growth of governmental welfare activity continued unabated, and today it has reached truly staggering proportions. Travelling in both Britain and the U.S., Milton Friedman points out that though many government welfare programs are well intentioned, they tend to have pernicious side effects. In Dr. Friedman’s view, perhaps the most serious shortcoming of governmental welfare activities is their tendency to strip away individual independence and dignity. This is because bureaucrats in welfare agencies are placed in positions of tremendous power over welfare recipients, exercising great influence over their lives. Because people never spend someone else’s money as carefully as they spend their own, inefficiency, waste, abuse, theft, and corruption are inevitable. In addition, welfare programs tend to be self-perpetuating because they destroy work incentives. Indeed, it is often in the welfare recipients’ best interests to remain unemployed. Dr. Friedman suggests a negative income tax as a way of helping the poor. The government would pay money to people falling below a certain income level. As they obtained jobs and earned money, they would continue to receive some payments from the government until their outside income reached a certain ceiling. This system would make people better off who sought work and earned income. This contrasts with many of today’s programs where one dollar earned means nearly one dollar lost in welfare payments.

Volume 4 – From Cradle to Grave
Transcript:
Friedman: After the 2nd World War, New York City authorities retained rent control supposedly to help their poorer citizens. The intentions were good. This in the Bronx was one result.
By the 50’s the same authorities were taxing their citizens. Including those who lived in the Bronx and other devastated areas beyond the East River to subsidize public housing. Another idea with good intentions yet poor people are paying for this, subsidized apartments for the well-to-do. When government at city or federal level spends our money to help us, strange things happen.
The idea that government had to protect us came to be accepted during the terrible years of the Depression. Capitalism was said to have failed. And politicians were looking for a new approach.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a candidate for the presidency. He was governor of New York State. At the governor’s mansion in Albany, he met repeatedly with friends and colleagues to try to find some way out of the Depression. The problems of the day were to be solved by government action and government spending. The measures that FDR and his associates discussed here derived from a long line of past experience. Some of the roots of these measures go back to Bismark’s Germany at the end of the 19th Century. The first modern state to institute old age pensions and other similar measures on the part of government. In the early 20th Century Great Britain followed suit under Lloyd George and Churchill. It too instituted old age pensions and similar plans.
These precursors of the modern welfare state had little effect on practice in the United States. But they did have a very great effect on the intellectuals on the campus like those who gathered here with FDR. The people who met here had little personal experience of the horrors of the Depression but they were confident that they had the solution. In their long discussions as they sat around this fireplace trying to design programs to meet the problems raised by the worst Depression in the history of the United States, they quite naturally drew upon the ideas that were prevalent at the time. The intellectual climate had become one in which it was taken for granted that government had to play a major role in solving the problems in providing what came later to be called Security from Cradle to Grave.
Roosevelt’s first priority after his election was to deal with massive unemployment. A Public Works program was started. The government financed projects to build highways, bridges and dams. The National Recovery Administration was set up to revitalize industry. Roosevelt wanted to see America move into a new era. The Social Security Act was passed and other measures followed. Unemployment benefits, welfare payments, distribution of surplus food. With these measures, of course, came rules, regulations and red tape as familiar today as they were novel then. The government bureaucracy began to grow and it’s been growing ever since.
This is just a small part of the Social Security empire today. Their headquarters in Baltimore has 16 rooms this size. All these people are dispensing our money with the best possible intentions. But at what cost?
In the 50 years since the Albany meetings, we have given government more and more control over our lives and our income. In New York State alone, these government buildings house 11,000 bureaucrats. Administering government programs that cost New York taxpayers 22 billion dollars. At the federal level, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare alone has a budget larger than any government in the world except only Russia and the United States.
Yet these government measures often do not help the people they are supposed to. Richard Brown’s daughter, Helema, needs constant medical attention. She has a throat defect and has to be connected to a breathing machine so that she’ll survive the nights. It’s expensive treatment and you might expect the family to qualify for a Medicaid grant.
Richard Brown: No, I don’t get it, cause I’m not eligible for it. I make a few dollars too much and the salary that I make I can’t afford to really live and to save anything is out of the question. And I mean, I live, we live from payday to payday. I mean literally from payday to payday.
Friedman: His struggle isn’t made any easier by the fact that Mr. Brown knows that if he gave up his job as an orderly at the Harlem Hospital, he would qualify for a government handout. And he’d be better off financially.
Hospital Worker: Mr. Brown, do me a favor please? There is a section patient.
Friedman: It’s a terrible pressure on him. But he is proud of the work that he does here and he’s strong enough to resist the pressure.
Richard Brown: I’m Mr. Brown. Your fully dilated and I’m here to take you to the delivery. Try not to push, please. We want to have a nice sterile delivery.
Friedman: Mr. Brown has found out the hard way that welfare programs destroy an individual’s independence.
Richard Brown: We’ve considered welfare. We went to see, to apply for welfare but, we were told that we were only eligible for $5.00 a month. And, to receive this $5.00 we would have to cash in our son’s savings bonds. And that’s not even worth it. I don’t believe in something for nothing anyway.
Mrs. Brown: I think a lot of people are capable of working and are willing to work, but it’s just the way it is set up. It, the mother and the children are better off if the husband isn’t working or if the husband isn’t there. And this breaks up so many poor families.
Friedman: One of the saddest things is that many of the children whose parents are on welfare will in their turn end up in the welfare trap when they grow up. In this public housing project in the Bronx, New York, 3/4’s of the families are now receiving welfare payments.
Well Mr. Brown wanted to keep away from this kind of thing for a very good reason. The people who get on welfare lose their human independence and feeling of dignity. They become subject to the dictates and whims of their welfare supervisor who can tell them whether they can live here or there, whether they may put in a telephone, what they may do with their lives. They are treated like children, not like responsible adults and they are trapped in the system. Maybe a job comes up which looks better than welfare but they are afraid to take it because if they lose it after a few months it maybe six months or nine months before they can get back onto welfare. And as a result, this becomes a self-perpetuating cycle rather than simply a temporary state of affairs.
Things have gone even further elsewhere. This is a huge mistake. A public housing project in Manchester, England.
Well we’re 3,000 miles away from the Bronx here but you’d never know it just by looking around. It looks as if we are at the same place. It’s the same kind of flats, the same kind of massive housing units, decrepit even though they were only built 7 or 8 years ago. Vandalism, graffiti, the same feeling about the place. Of people who don’t have a great deal of drive and energy because somebody else is taking care of their day to day needs because the state has deprived them of an incentive to find jobs to become responsible people to be the real support for themselves and their families.
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Comments (0)

Attorney: Ark. weatherman innocent in Maumelle death of Dexter Williams

September 8, 2011 – 7:54 pm

Today’s THV channel 11 in Little Rock reported:

MAUMELLE, Ark. (AP) – An attorney for a local meteorologist says no foul play was involved in the death of a 24-year-old Mountain Pine man.

Little Rock-based lawyer Mark Hampton said Thursday that KARK meteorologist Brett Cummins is innocent.

Authorities say Cummins and the body of 24-year-old Dexter Williams were found in a jacuzzi at a Maumelle home on Monday. Williams was wearing what appeared to be a dog collar around his neck and according to the police report, the homeowner said they had been doing drugs the night before.

No charges have been filed in Williams’ death. Authorities have questioned Cummins and the homeowner multiple times.

Police have not yet released the preliminary results of Williams’ autopsy. His family says they’re disturbed by the circumstances surrounding his death and added that Williams was easily influenced.

(Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Below are my most recent posts related to the subjects of drugs and alcohol:

Dave Hope and Kerry Livgren of Kansas: Their story of deliverance from drugs

The recent events in Little Rock concerning KARK TV’s top weatherman Brett Cummins and his experience of drinking alcohol and snorting coke has left a lot of people asking questions. Since the evening ended in the tragic death of one of Brett’s friends, Dexter Williams, many questions have centered on the use of illegal drugs. […]

Pictures of Dexter Williams

These are some pictures of Dexter Williams. Unfortunately his life was cut short  while drinking and snorting coke with KARK weatherman Brett Cummins. Dexter Williams (Photo from family) Dexter Paul Williams (facebook photo) Related posts: Pictures of Dexter Williams September 7, 2011 – 10:22 pm These are some pictures of Dexter Williams. Unfortunately his life was […]

You tube video “Cocaine is a hell of a drug” about Brett Cummins

Youtube video about Brett Cummins story posted. TV weatherman awakens in hot tub next to naked dead man with ‘dog collar’ around his neck after drug and alcohol-fueled party   By Thomas Durante Last updated at 7:24 PM on 7th September 2011 It may be part of his job to predict when a storm is […]

Brett Cummins turns to drugs instead of God

Brett Cummins has risen to be the top tv weatherman in the evening at KARK News 4. However, something is missing in his life. (I wish Brett would just take the time to read the story by Marvin A. McMickle | Senior Pastor, Antioch Baptist Church, Cleveland, Ohio at the end of this post). I […]

The sad case of Brett Cummins: Alcohol takes another victim jh14c

Brett Cummins and his friends were drinking heavily and taking drugs on Sunday night and all three of them went to sleep under the influence of alcohol and drugs and only 2 of them woke  up.  This reminds me of a few verses from the Old Testament. (There is hope. Check out the video interviews of Kerry Livgren […]

Picture of Dexter Williams with link to full police report

This is a link to the full police report. (There is hope. Check out the video interviews of Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope of the rock band Kansas.  Also check out an excellent paper by Marvin McMickle on the meaning of the song “I can’t get no satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones and where to find the satisfaction.) Dexter […]

KARK Brett Cummins was “snorting…illegal narcotics…” according to friend jh13c

Details concerning what happened are coming out now. It seems that KARK can no longer ignore the fact that Cummins was snorting coke. (There is hope, check out testimony of one who has been delivered from drugs and alcohol and his name is Marvin.)Here is a Democrat-Gazette article on the incident: Man, 24, found dead in […]

Statement from KARK does not mention drug use of Brett Cummins

Brett Cummins was snorting coke but you could never tell it from this statement from KARK: KARK-TV anchor Bob Clausen said on the air today, “Our meteorologist Brett Cummins was at the home at the time of the death and we felt we should share this with you our viewers. Brett will not be on […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Ron “Pigpen” McKernan of the Grateful Dead didn’t survive but Barry McGuire did (jh17c)

September 8, 2011 – 4:08 pm

Drugs and alcohol have always been a pitfall that many of the wealthy fall into. We see rock bands that become famous have lots of temptations thrown their way and many fall into these traps. Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and Barry McGuire fell into these traps. One joined the “27 Club” and the other left the drugs behind when he put his faith in Christ.

In light of the horrible tragedy in Little Rock on Sunday with the death of a young man of 24 years of age, I wanted to warn other young people of the dangers of alcohol and drugs.

Below is a post I did a few weeks ago and I will follow it with more links to recent posts I have done concerning drugs and alcohol.

You have to drink a lot to develop cirrhosis at the age of 27. And unfortunately, singer and keyboard player McKernan, one of the founders of the Grateful Dead, drank a lot. Before his death, Pigpen was the definitive embodiment of the original, slapdash, wasted blues incarnation of the Dead, before psychedelia and experimental proficiency became their defining element. He helped form the group, but was surpassed in musical ability by later recruits. Even before he died, he represented a throwback to "the way things used to be" for fans to argue over — not unlike his fellow 27 clubber Brian Jones was for the Rolling Stones. (AP Photo)

You have to drink a lot to develop cirrhosis at the age of 27. And unfortunately, singer and keyboard player McKernan, one of the founders of the Grateful Dead, drank a lot. Before his death, Pigpen was the definitive embodiment of the original, slapdash, wasted blues incarnation of the Dead, before psychedelia and experimental proficiency became their defining element. He helped form the group, but was surpassed in musical ability by later recruits. Even before he died, he represented a throwback to “the way things used to be” for fans to argue over — not unlike his fellow 27 clubber Brian Jones was for the Rolling Stones.

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Amy Winehouse and the ‘Forever 27 Club’

Saturday, the first news headline I saw was:  “Amy Winehouse found dead at 27”.  For some reason, it felt a little more crippling that it was supposed to.

“It was a long-time coming”, is what most say (someone won an iPod by predicting the date on the website whenwillamywinehousedie.com) and maybe it was a long-time coming, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that however you look at it, the music industry has lost a really good singer and one of the most influential artists of the late part of this decade;  Lost a voice that embodied what Motown legends were made of;  And essentially, if you believe in the oddidy of the so-called Forever 27 Club – we lost another talented musician to the club of dead rock stars — those that never lived to see 28.  An age we cautiously outgrow, thinking of their fated (and un-fated) deaths at least once during the age of our own 27th year of life.

Essentially speaking, “27” seems to be rock and roll’s most unlucky number.  Sure there are those who have passed at this age due to overdoeses and drug addictions and battles with depression,  it’s the age that as we all know now took Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and now the second female in the club, Amy Winehouse.

There are more members of the Forever 27 Club;  some died because of medical conditions, car accidents and just plain, weird occurrences, and tragedies.  Any way you look at it, it is weird that so many musicians can’t seem to make it to the age of 28.  Other members of the Forever 27 Club include:  Ron “Pigpen” McKernan of the Grateful Dead, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Chris Bell of Big Star, even Robert Johnson a famous blues musician died at 27, cited for unknown reasons.

The creepiness of the amount of rock stars that die at this age poses the question, what about the age of 27 has put so many rock stars into the ground?  Is it behavior we expect from them (abusing drugs and alcohol, making bad decisions, driving drunk, getting on small planes?).  Is 27 an exceptionally hard age to live through when you are that famous (mine was a good year, but I am not famous)?  Or is it a question of just wanting more and more and more.  Twenty-seven is an age, after all that is old enough to be an adult, but still not old enough to understand the world. Although I am not sure that has happened to me yet, and I am 31.

For Amy Winehouse, the tragedy of being part of the Forever 27 Club means not having to slide into a vauge mediocre music choices to keep up with the wretched”singers” who would outsell her lovely, husky sound with computer generated vocals and gyrated movements with snakes and backup dancers.

In her death, she has left us with a small collection of music to take from — all beautiful, all tragic and all for us to keep our arms tight around.  From her two Cd’s she inspired a sound that made music a little better, if only for a little while.  Her sound brought out the funk and beat of a broken heart in a time when hipster, gothic, hang-yourself love songs were topping the charts, paving the way for singers like Adele, Cee Lo Green and Bruno Mars to get a little funky with broken hearts.

You can hear her fate in the song that made her a household name, “Rehab,” a smart, self-aware song about her struggle with going to get help for drinking, drugs and depression.  A fight she would essentially lose.

Winehouse sounded wise and wounded beyond her years. And like Cobain, Hendrix and Joplin, Amy Winehouse’s music had a sense of strength and purpose that she — and they — failed to summon in their own lives.

I hope when I get to the pearly gates one day, I am greeted by the “Forever 27’s”, heaven’s best band ever.  Well, either them…or the Beatles.

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Members of the Grateful Dead are pictured in this 1969 photo. After thirty years of making music, the Grateful Dead, once the house band of the 1960s counterculture, is breaking up. The move came four months after the death of its founder and guiding spirit, Jerry Garcia. From left in the back row are, Tom Constanten, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzman, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, and Phil Lesh. Jerry Garcia, left, and Mickey Hart, right, are in the front row. (AP Photo) // The ‘Forever 27’ Club: Rock stars dead at 27 (AP Photo)

Larger image

AP Photo

Members of the Grateful Dead are pictured in this 1969 photo. After thirty years of making music, the Grateful Dead, once the house band of the 1960s counterculture, is breaking up. The move came four months after the death of its founder and guiding spirit, Jerry Garcia. From left in the back row are, Tom Constanten, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzman, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, and Phil Lesh. Jerry Garcia, left, and Mickey Hart, right, are in the front row. (AP Photo)

The keyboardist, singer and harmonica player from The Grateful Dead died in 1973 from a stomach hemorrhage as a result of years of heavy drinking.

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Musician Barry McGuire’s Testimony: Eve of Destruction

When I was a little boy, my grandmother told me something I’ve never forgotten. I was probably about five, maybe six years old. She used to take care of me during the day when my mom worked. One day she said to me, ‘you know, Barry, one day when you grow up, you’re gonna know the truth, and the truth is gonna set you free.’ Now, I didn’t know that came out of the Bible. I didn’t even know there was a Bible. I was just a little kid. My grandmother told me that. And I knew she loved me, and boy, I knew I loved her. And when I grew up, sure enough, I wanted to be free. I mean who doesn’t want to be free? And certainly, a lie has never set anyone free. So if anything was gonna set me free, it had to be the truth.

Eve of Destruction was written by 19-year-old songwriter P. F. Sloan in 1965 and eventually became Barry McGuire’s one and only big Billboard chart hit song.

______________________________

And along came the 60s. And boy, I was the right age at the right time in the wrong place, you might say. And hey, I wanted to be free. Boy, I sang ‘Eve of Destruction’ lookin’ to be free. I went to Broadway. I did a show on Broadway called HAIR. I played the male lead in the original Broadway cast, lookin’ to be free. And the very lifestyle that we were promoting was killing us all. I looked around me I saw my friends, one, two, three at a time goin’ down: drug overdose, suicide, sexually transmitted diseases.

So I left Broadway, I came back out to California. And I was livin’ with a friend of mine, Denny Doherty, up on the Appian Way. And he used to joke and tease me, ’cause I was still lookin’ for truth, and every time a new teacher or sage or somebody, Meyer Baba, Sai Baba, Hadji Baba, any Baba would do, I mean I was down there in the front row, ya know, ‘Humna Baba, lay the truth on me, man!’ I was hummin’ and bobbin’ and goin’ for it. And Denny says, ‘Ah, you belong to the Guru of the Month Club.’ I mean, anybody, I didn’t care. If they had a word, I was down there tryin’ to learn the truth. And they said a lot of things that were true, but I just couldn’t somehow get it right inside of me.

And I was just about to give up, and one day I went over to a friend’s house, Eric Hord. He used to be the lead guitar player for The Mamas and Papas, and he always had a big bowl of marijuana under his coffee table. And man, I had this bowl out that morning; I had three papers glued together. I figured he’s only gonna lay one joint on me, so I’ll make the biggest one I can roll. And I look down on this particular day, there’s a little paper back book layin’ on the table next to the grass, and it’s called Good News for Modern Man. And I thought, ‘Hey, I’m a modern man. I could use some good news.’ I mean, everybody was dyin’ all around me. So I took the book home with me, didn’t know what it was. I got by myself, opened it up, and right on the first flyleaf page in the book it says, ‘The New Testament in Modern English.’ I got so angry. ‘Ah, look at this! Them Jesus Freaks, man! They’re diguisin’ the Bible!’ Threw it on the floor, I didn’t wanna read the Bible! Give me a break! And it laid there for days. I was hopin’ someone would come along and throw it away. I didn’t wanna throw it away, ’cause I knew what it was, the Bible, and just in case, you don’t wanna be responsible. Who knows? But it laid there for days, weeks, and months actually. I mean, when somethin’ hit the floor in my house; the next person to pick it up was an archaeologist. I mean, that was some future dig.

And I was there one day by myself. And there this little book somehow kept surfacing above the trash. And the wind was blowing through the window catching the pages. It was flickin’ its pages, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick. ‘Read me!’ it said to me. And truthfully, just out of bored, sarcastic curiosity, I picked up The Life and Times of Jesus Christ. And for the first time in my life, I stopped looking at Christians; I stopped looking at denominations, organizations, Catholics, Protestants, ya know, all this stuff that goes on in His name. And I took a look at Him, examined what He had to say. How He treated His personal friends. What He had to say to the people in the street, the alcoholics, the prostitutes, the homosexuals, the thieves, liars, and robbers. What he had to say about the military people, the political leaders, and the spiritual leaders (which is about the scariest thing he had to say to anybody). How He treated the little children when they came around. And everything that Jesus had to say, as I put it to the test against what I knew to be true through my own life experience, I couldn’t find anything wrong with His words. There’s no double meaning, no hidden agenda. It was all out front. And then He said thirteen words that changed my life, because I saw this was the answer to my personal eve of destruction. He said, ‘Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as your self.’

How simple can it get? And I realized that if all of us in the whole world lived according to those two simple instructions — I don’t care what your concept of God is, you could be a Buddhist, you could be B’hai, you could be, ya know, whatever it is, Christian, just your concept of God — love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as your self, and our world would change. How simple can it get? We wouldn’t need a police force anymore, and we wouldn’t need armies and navies and prisons and welfare systems. We wouldn’t need lawyers and politicians. Two simple pieces of instruction: Love God with all my heart, and love my neighbor as my self.

And I wanted to be like Jesus. I thought, ‘Man, this is my guy!’ But I didn’t wanna be a Christian, see. I wanted to be like Him, but I didn’t wanna be like all them. I thought if I said yes to Jesus I’d have to get a powder blue leisure suit — remember those? — White shoes, ya know, walk around smilin’ a lot. I couldn’t do that.

But then I wrestled with it for nearly a year. And one day I was up just off Mulholland Drive in Stone Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. And I’m bangin’ my head on the wall, my friends are all smokin’ dope, eating peyote, psilocybin, ya know, drinkin’ champagne and orange juice. And I’m over in the corner; I can’t have fun anymore. See, once you’ve been busted by the truth, you’ve been busted. You can’t fake it anymore. You can’t go around sayin’, ‘Well, who really knows?’ ‘Cause you really know. You don’t wanna know. But I knew. Jesus is the Lamb of God. His death paid my karmic debt. See, I had a debt I couldn’t pay. I had debt I could not pay. I mean, I’m a murderer, I’m a liar, I’m a thief, I’m everything you’re not supposed to be. I did it all. One time I was doing a newspaper interview, and the reporter said, ‘Well, what did you do?’ I said, ‘Well, ya know the Ten Commandments?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘I broke ’em. All of ’em. A lot.’

That’s what I did. And that’s what we all did. And there has to be justice. How could God not allow justice to be? He couldn’t just arbitrarily say, ‘that’s okay, Barry. You’re forgiven.’ And Jesus said, ‘I will go. I will satisfy the demands of justice on his behalf.’ And now the Bible says if I should stumble, if I should sin, it says God is faithful and just. You know what that justice cost? It cost Jesus’ life. And He did that for me, He did that for you, He did that for every person that’s gonna ever hear these words. So that I could be forgiven and truly, truly be free. That happened in 1971. I fell on my face on the floor of that house in Stone Canyon. I said, ‘God, I don’t know why, how; if I wake up alive tomorrow I’ll follow You wherever You lead me.’ And within a week I was on a Greyhound bus out of Hollywood, and I’ve never looked back, except in awe and wonder at how He revealed Himself to me in my state of mind at that time.”

—

If you feel that your life feels incomplete or unsatisfying, please follow this link:
What is purpose of life?

Below are my most recent posts related to the subjects of drugs and alcohol:

Dave Hope and Kerry Livgren of Kansas: Their story of deliverance from drugs

The recent events in Little Rock concerning KARK TV’s top weatherman Brett Cummins and his experience of drinking alcohol and snorting coke has left a lot of people asking questions. Since the evening ended in the tragic death of one of Brett’s friends, Dexter Williams, many questions have centered on the use of illegal drugs. […]

Pictures of Dexter Williams

These are some pictures of Dexter Williams. Unfortunately his life was cut short  while drinking and snorting coke with KARK weatherman Brett Cummins. Dexter Williams (Photo from family) Dexter Paul Williams (facebook photo) Related posts: Pictures of Dexter Williams September 7, 2011 – 10:22 pm These are some pictures of Dexter Williams. Unfortunately his life was […]

You tube video “Cocaine is a hell of a drug” about Brett Cummins

Youtube video about Brett Cummins story posted. TV weatherman awakens in hot tub next to naked dead man with ‘dog collar’ around his neck after drug and alcohol-fueled party   By Thomas Durante Last updated at 7:24 PM on 7th September 2011 It may be part of his job to predict when a storm is […]

Brett Cummins turns to drugs instead of God

Brett Cummins has risen to be the top tv weatherman in the evening at KARK News 4. However, something is missing in his life. (I wish Brett would just take the time to read the story by Marvin A. McMickle | Senior Pastor, Antioch Baptist Church, Cleveland, Ohio at the end of this post). I […]

The sad case of Brett Cummins: Alcohol takes another victim jh14c

Brett Cummins and his friends were drinking heavily and taking drugs on Sunday night and all three of them went to sleep under the influence of alcohol and drugs and only 2 of them woke  up.  This reminds me of a few verses from the Old Testament. (There is hope. Check out the video interviews of Kerry Livgren […]

Picture of Dexter Williams with link to full police report

This is a link to the full police report. (There is hope. Check out the video interviews of Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope of the rock band Kansas.  Also check out an excellent paper by Marvin McMickle on the meaning of the song “I can’t get no satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones and where to find the satisfaction.) Dexter […]

KARK Brett Cummins was “snorting…illegal narcotics…” according to friend jh13c

Details concerning what happened are coming out now. It seems that KARK can no longer ignore the fact that Cummins was snorting coke. (There is hope, check out testimony of one who has been delivered from drugs and alcohol and his name is Marvin.)Here is a Democrat-Gazette article on the incident: Man, 24, found dead in […]

Statement from KARK does not mention drug use of Brett Cummins

Brett Cummins was snorting coke but you could never tell it from this statement from KARK: KARK-TV anchor Bob Clausen said on the air today, “Our meteorologist Brett Cummins was at the home at the time of the death and we felt we should share this with you our viewers. Brett will not be on […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Responding to Oppenneimer and Lizza:Defending Francis Schaeffer’s influence on believers such as Michele Bachmann(Part 7)

September 8, 2011 – 4:06 pm

Both Oppenneimer and Lizza have attacked Francis Schaeffer’s view, but the way to know his views best is to take time to watch his film series. I said that in my first post and I will continue to show all ten episodes of his film series “How should we then live?”

This is a series of posts concerning presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and her religious beliefs. Particularly I will be looking at the identity of Francis Schaeffer who Michele said had major impact on her views. I also would say that Francis Schaeffer was the greatest christian philosopher of the 20th century.

In 1979 I first watched the film series “How should we then live?” and it was so impressive to me that I returned to my high school with permission from my former teacher to view the series again. In fact, Mr. Brink would tell the seniors at Evangelical Christian School in  Cordova, TN something to this affect: “I hope you realize how important this film series by Dr. Francis Schaeffer is. Here we have Everette Hatcher who is in college now, but he is coming back to see this film again because he knows how valuable it is.”

The best way to understand Michele Bachmann’s worldview is to watch the film series “How should we then live?” by Francis Schaeffer. I have provided a 30 minute episode at the end of this post with a written outline.  In this film series the humanist worldview is seen as weak because it is not able to give adequate answers to life’s tough questions while the christian worldview can.  Humanism has a finite base because it is limited to finite man while the Christian worldview is based on information provided by the infinite-personal God of the Bible.

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E P I S O D E 7

How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason)

#02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer

10 Worldview and Truth

Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100

Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION

Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR

I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act on his belief that we live in a closed system that was produced by chance with no God. Therefore, man’s only alternative is to look to chance and nonreason for our search for meaning in life and for moral guidance. Schaeffer rightly points out “With what Christ and the Bible teach, Man can have life instead of death—in having knowledge that is more than finite Man can have from himself.”

T h e AGE OF NON-REASON

I. Optimism Of Older Humanist Philosophers:

The unity and true knowledge of reality defined as starting from Man alone.

II. Shift in Modern Philosophy

A. Eighteenth century as the vital watershed.

B. Rousseau: ideas and influence.

1. Rousseau and autonomous freedom.

2. Personal freedom and social necessity clash in Rousseau.

3. Rousseau’s influence.

a) Robespierre and the ideology of the Terror.

b) Gauguin, natural freedom, and disillusionment.

C. DeSade: If nature is the absolute, cruelty equals non-cruelty.

D. Impossible tension between autonomous freedom and autonomous reasons conclusion that the universe and people are a part of the total cosmic machine.

E. Kant, Hegel, and Kierkegaard and their followers sought for a unity but they did not solve the problem.

1. After these men and their followers, there came an absolute break between the area of meaning and values, and the area of reason.

2. Now humanistic philosophy sees reason as always leading to pessimism; any hope of optimism lies in non-reason.

III. Existentialism and Non-Reason

A. French existentialism.

1. Total separation of reason and will: Sartre.

2. Not possible to live consistently with this position.

B. German existentialism.

1. Jaspers and the “final experience.”

2. Heidegger and angst.

C. Influence of existentialism.

1. As a formal philosophy it is declining.

2. As a generalized attitude it dominates modern thought.

IV. Forms of Popularization of Nonrational Experience

A. Drug experience.

1. Aldous Huxley and “truth inside one’s head.”

2. Influence of rock groups in spreading the drug culture; psychedelic rock.

B. Eastern religious experience: from the drug trip to the Eastern religious trip.

C. The occult as a basis for “hope” in the area of non-reason.

V. Theological Liberalism and Existentialism

A. Preparation for theological existentialism.

1. Renaissance’s attempt to “synthesize” Greek philosophers and Christianity; religious liberals’ attempt to “synthesize” Enlightenment and Christianity.

2. Religious liberals denied supernatural but accepted reason.

3. Schweitzer’s demolition of liberal aim to separate the natural from the supernatural in the New Testament.

B. Theological existentialism.

1. Intellectual failure of rationalist theology opened door to theological existentialism.

2. Barth brought the existential methodology into theology.

a) Barth’s teaching led to theologians who said that the Bible is not true in the areas of science and history, but they nevertheless look for a religious experience from it.

b) For many adherents of this theology, the Bible does not give absolutes in regard to what is right or wrong in human behavior.

3. Theological existentialism as a cul-de-sac.

a) If Bible is divorced from its teaching concerning the cosmos and history, its values can’t be applied to a historic situation in either morals or law; theological pronouncements about morals or law are arbitrary.

b) No way to explain evil or distinguish good from evil. Therefore, these theologians are in same position as Hindu philosophers (as illustrated by Kali).

c) Tillich, prayer as reflection, and the deadness of “god.”

d) Religious words used for manipulation of society.

VI. Conclusion

With what Christ and the Bible teach, Man can have life instead of death—in having knowledge that is more than finite Man can have from himself.

Questions

1. What is the difference between theologians and philosophers of the rationalist tradition and those of the existentialist tradition?

2. “If the early church had embraced an existentialist theology, it would have been absorbed into the Roman pantheon.” It didn’t. Why not?

3. “It is true that existentialist theology is foreign to biblical religion. But biblical religion was the product of a particular culture and, though useful for societies in the same cultural stream, it is no longer suitable for an age in which an entire range of world cultures requires a common religious denominator. Religious existentialism provides that, without losing the universal instinct for the holy.” Study this statement carefully. What assumptions are betrayed by it?

4. Can you isolate attitudes and tendencies in yourself, your church, and your community which reflect the “existentialist methodology” described by Dr. Schaeffer?

Key Events and Persons

Rousseau: 1712-1778

Kant: 1724-1804

Marquis de Sade: 1740-1814

The Social Contract: 1762

Hegel: 1770-1831

Kierkegaard: 1813-1855

Paul Gauguin: 1848-1903

Whence, What Whither?: 1897-1898

Albert Schweitzer: 1875-1965

Quest for the Historical Jesus: 1906

Karl Jaspers: 1883-1969

Paul Tillich: 1886-1965

Karl Barth: 1886-1968

Martin Heidegger: 1889-1976

Aldous Huxley: 1894-1963

J.P. Sartre: 1905-1980

Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper: 1967

Further Study

Unless already familiar with them, take time to listen to the Beatles’ records, as well as to discs put out by other groups at the time.

Albert Camus, The Stranger (1942).

Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception (1954).

Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762).

J.P. Sartre, Nausea (1938).

Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be (1952).

Following Rousseau, the exaggeration of the delights and the pathos of nature and experience which marks Romanticism may be sampled in, for example, Wordsworth’s poems, Casper David Friedrich’s paintings, and Schubert’s songs.

J.G. Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation (1968).

J.W. von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1962).

Erich Heller, The Disinherited Mind (1952).

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