If Michele Bachmann is feeling threatened by Rick Perry’s imminent entry into the presidential race, she didn’t show it in a Friday morning interview on the “Today” show. Asked about the Texas governor, she skated right by the question and didn’t even say Perry’s name.
“Well, I’ve been in Washington, DC, now going on 5 years, and I’ve been a very consistent challenger to the unconstitutional policies of President Obama and Speaker Pelosi,” Bachmann said, going on to tick off her business and legal credentials.
“I’ve also stood up against my own party. I stood up on principle rather than party,” she added. “I’ve been bringing this voice, this movement into the halls of Congress very successfully.”
It was even less of a Perry-specific answer than she gave in last night’s debate. Unlike some of the other candidates who sought to draw a contrast with the soon-to-be-candidate, Bachmann merely joked, “I think there is room in the race for Governor Perry, Sarah Palin or even, Bret, you too.”
On “Today,” Bachmann also took — and deflected — a question about that now-infamous picture of her on the cover of Newsweek.
She listed all the recent bad news — the stock market, the credit downgrade, casualties in Afghanistan — and said, “That’s not a good week. A magazine photo is not even a factor in all that.”
As for whether she is, in fact, the “Queen of Rage”: “No, not at all. I’m a very happy person, a very optimistic person. … I love people. I really care about where people are at right now with the economy. So I want to focus on making their lives better.”
John Stott, world renowned Bible Scholar and theologian passed away on July 28th, 2011. In 2000, he attended Amsterdam 2000, an evangelists conference where he was interviewed by Karl Faase
Back in the 1970’s I read the book “Basic Christianity” by John Stott. While in London in 1979 I had the opportunity to attend a Tuesday evening prayer meeting where there were about 40 people and I got to hear John Stott speak. I was so thrilled to get to hear him speak in person.
I have included several clips on him because I wanted to honor him after the wonderful godly 90 years he lived.
John Stott’s classic book has introduced generations to Christianity with wisdom and clarity. This video celebrates the 50th Anniversary Edition of this important book by one of the world’s most important Christian voices.
John Stott died on 27 July 2011 aged 90 years. This video contains highlights of his Funeral at All Souls Langham Place in London on Monday 8 August 2011. Produced and displayed with permission from John Stott’s family.
Music clips used by permission of All Souls musicians and Jubilate Hymns (www.jubilate.co.uk)
The funeral for John R. W. Stott, one of the most famous evangelical preachers of the last century, will be held today in London at All Souls Church, Langham Place, where he served with distinction for so many decades of ministry. In honor of John Stott, I here republish an interview I conducted with the great preacher in 1987. The interview was first published in Preaching magazine, for which I was then Associate Editor.]
John R. W. Stott has emerged in the last half of the twentieth century as one of the leading evangelical preachers in the world. His ministry has spanned decades and continents, combining his missionary zeal with the timeless message of the Gospel.
For many years the Rector of All Souls Church, Langham Place, in London, Stott is also the founder and director of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. His preaching ministry stands as a model of the effective communication of biblical truth to secular men and women
The author of several worthy books, Stott is perhaps best known in the United States through his involvement with the URBANA conferences. His voice and pen have been among the most determinative forces in the development of the contemporary evangelical movement in the Church of England and throughout the world.
Preaching Associate Editor R. Albert Mohler interviewed Stott during one of the British preacher’s frequent visits to the United States.
I Began with a Very Strong Commitment to Scripture
Mohler: Your service over many years at All Souls Church in London had a tremendous impact throughout much of the world. There, in the midst of London’s busiest retail area, you presented the gospel with great effectiveness and power. Did your preaching change at all during your ministry at All Souls?
Stott: I began with a very strong commitment to Scripture, a very high view of its authority and inspiration. I have always loved the Word of God — ever since I was converted. Therefore, I have always sought to exercise an expository or exegetical ministry.
In my early days I used to think that my business was to expound and exegete the text; I am afraid I left the application to the Holy Spirit. It is amazing how you can conceal your laziness with a little pious phraseology! The Holy Spirit certainly can and does apply the Word for the people. But it is wrong to deny our own responsibility in the application of the Word.
All great preachers understand this. They focus on the conclusion, on the application of the text. This is what the Puritans called “preaching through to the heart.” This is how my own preaching has changed. I have learned to add application to exposition — and this is the bridge-building across the chasm.
Mohler: You have recently published a major volume on the cross [The Cross of Christ, InterVarsity Press, 1986]. This has always been central to your preaching — and all genuinely Christian preaching. Do you perceive an inadequate focus on the cross in the pulpit today?
Stott: Indeed, so far as I can see, it is inadequate. I think we need to get back to the fact that the cross is the center of biblical Christianity. We must not allow those on the one hand to put the incarnation as primary, nor can we allow those on the other hand to put the primary focus on the resurrection.
Of course, the cross, the incarnation, and the resurrection belong together. There could have been no atonement without the incarnation or without the resurrection. The incarnation prepares for the atonement and the resurrection endorses the atonement, so they belong always together.
Yet the New Testament is very clear that the cross stands at the center. It worries me that some evangelicals do not focus on Christ crucified as the center. Of course, we preach the whole of biblical religion, but with the cross as central.
One of the surprises which came as a product of the research for the book was the discovery that most books on the cross focus only on the atonement. There is much the New Testament has to say about the cross which is not focused on the atonement.
We are told, for example, to take up our cross and follow Christ. Communion is a cross-centered festival. There is the whole question of balance in the modern world. The problems of suffering and self-image are addressed by the cross. These issues appear quite differently when our world-view is dominated by the cross.
This article below makes we think of the lady tied to the Railroad in the Schaeffer video.
Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism
(Modern man sees no hope for the future and has deluded himself by appealing to nonreason to stay sane. Look at the example of the lady tied to the railroad tracks in this above video as a example.)
Francis Schaeffer took a look at modern day humanism and he showed how pitiful “optimistic humanism” is. Schaffer points out this weakness of the humanistic view:
With my reason I can find absolutely no way to have meaning, morality, hope or beauty if the universe I am living in only an existial absurdity. This would plunge me into dispair, but that is not where I stop. I say to myself “There is hope” even though there is none, “There is help on the way” even though there is none. “We shall overcome” even though there is nothing more certain than we shall be destroyed.
“We need some delusions to keep us going,” Allen tells The New York Times. In You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, which opens next week, Allen says,
The people who successfully delude themselves seem happier than the people who can’t. I’ve known people who have put their faith in religion and in fortune tellers. So it occurred to me that that was a good character for a movie: a woman who everything had failed for her, and all of a sudden, it turned out that a woman telling her fortune was helping her. The problem is, eventually, she’s in for a rude awakening.
Oddly, that seems to make the NYT interviewer go directly a reincarnation question, perhaps unawarenearly one in ten Americans believe both in God and in reincarnation, according to the 2008 General Social Survey. Allen answers,
Neither seems plausible to me. I have a grim, scientific assessment of it. I just feel, what you see is what you get.
This is pretty much Allen’s standard God riff. Until You Tube yanked the tapes for copyright reasons, you could once see Allen him try it out on Rev. Billy Graham — although the stalwart evangelist drew almost as many laughs as Allen.
Perhaps his childhood upbringing in an “unreasonable enforced religion” led the one-time Allen Stewart Konigsberg, now Woody Allen to use humor as a survival too. He once told a biographer:
It was a joyless, unpleasant, stupid, barbaric thing when I was a child and I’ve never gotten over that feeling. If you’re talking about religion it’s one thing; I don’t hold Jewish religion with any more seriousness than I would any other.
Allen qualified that by adding that he benefited from Jewish values and cultural habits which he described as “respect for books and learning and the higher professions” and an “appreciation of theater and music.”
But those are fringe benefits, not matters of faith. This may explain why, when the Jewish journal Moment asked 70 Jewish writers, thinkers and cultural figures this spring what “What does it mean to be a Jew today? they didn’t include Allen.
Woody Allen, the film writer, director, and actor, has consistently populated his scripts with characters who exchange dialogue concerning meaning and purpose. In Hannah and Her Sisters a character named Mickey says, “Do you realize what a thread were all hanging by? Can you understand how meaningless everything is? Everything. I gotta get some answers.”{7} […]
I have gone to see Woody Allen’s latest movie “Midnight in Paris” three times and taken lots of notes during the films. I have attempted since June 12th when I first started posting to give a historical rundown on every person mentioned in the film. Below are the results of my study. I welcome any […]
Looking at the (sometimes skewed) morality of Woody Allen’s best films. In the late ’60s, Woody Allen left the world of stand-up comedy behind for the movies. Since then, he’s become one of American cinema’s most celebrated filmmakers. Sure, he’s had his stinkers and his private life hasn’t been without controversy. But he’s also crafted […]
In one of his philosophical and melancholy musings Woody Allen once drily observed: “More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” Life tortures Woody Allen posted by Rod Dreher […]
Midnight in Paris – a delightfully entertaining film of wit, wonder and love Have you ever thought that you were born in the wrong time? Since I was a child, I found my love for MGM musicals set me apart from my friends. Are we really out of place, or is a sense of nostalgia […]
Five favorite Woody Allen classics Add a comment Sean Kernan , Davenport Classic Movies Examiner June 11, 2011 Woody Allen’s new film “Midnight in Paris” starring Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams and Oscar winner Marion Cotillard opened Friday, June 10th at Rave Motion Pictures in Davenport, Iowa. “Midnight in Paris” stars Owen Wilson as a blocked […]
Below is a press release from a museum in San Francisco: the steins were known for their saturday evening salons, where artists, writers, musicians, intellectuals, and collectors gathered to discuss contemporary art, culture, and ideas. the stein salons have even been described as ‘the first museum of modern art’! midnight in paris transports you to the stein […]
The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 28)
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.
Washington, D.C. – Today, Congressman Marlin Stutzman (IN-03) discussed the upcoming vote to increase the ‘Debt Ceiling’ by $2.4 trillion from $14.29 trillion to $16.7 trillion. H. R. 1954 the bill to ‘implement the President’s request to increase the statutory limit on public debt’ to cover our $1.6 trillion budget shortfall will be voted on later this evening and is expected to fail with both Democrats and Republicans voting against. The bill would fulfill the requests of the Democrat leadership to have a vote on a “clean” bill or a bill that raises the debt ceiling without spending cuts or any other mechanism to control deficits.
“Increasing the ‘debt ceiling’ cannot be discussed in a vacuum.” Stutzman stated “I will vote no for increasing the ‘debt limit’ as the out of control spending of Washington must be curtailed before we even discuss an increase. If Congress cannot come to an agreement on increasing the public debt then Secretary Geithner will have to look into prioritizing our National debt. Prioritizing the ‘debt’ will allow for Social Security, the Military and Veteran’s Affairs to maintain their programs and not affect those that depend on them. The President must come to the table with budget reforms; he doesn’t understand the financial situation the Nation is in. So far only the House has written and passed a budget.”
More information on H.R. 1954 can be found at www.Thomas.gov.
If you looked at the new CBO report on the budget, you may have noticed that federal spending this year will be $3.6 trillion.
In fact, federal spending this year will top $4 trillion. But virtually all reporters and budget wonks (including me) routinely use the lower number when discussing total federal spending. I don’t think the higher $4 trillion number even appears anywhere in the CBO report.
The $3.6 trillion figure is “net” outlays. But “gross” outlays, or total spending, is quite a bit higher. The difference is caused by “offsetting collections” and “offsetting receipts.” These are revenue inflows to the government that are netted against spending at the program level, agency level, or government-wide level. Some examples are national park fees, Medicare premiums, and royalties earned on mineral deposits. There are hundreds of these cash inflows to the government that offset reported spending.
Details on these revenue offsets can be found in Chapter 16 of OMB’s Analytical Perspectives(pdf). In fiscal year 2010, net federal outlays were $3.456 trillion, but gross outlays were $4.057 trillion. Thus, gross outlays were 17 percent larger than widely reported net outlays.
In FY 2011, OMB expects gross outlays to be about 15 percent larger than net outlays. Thus, gross outlays this year will be $4.1 trillion, compared to net outlays of $3.6 trillion. As a share of GDP, gross outlays will be about 27.3 percent of GDP, compared to net outlays of 23.8 percent.
Accounting for offsets in this manner is a long-standing convention, but it is one of the sneaky ways that Washington tries to hide its large intrusion into the economy. Certainly, the CBO and OMB should include more prominent presentations of gross outlays in their regular budget updates.
For citizens and reporters, a rule-of-thumb to remember is that total federal spending is 3 to 4 percentage points of GDP larger than usually reported by officials.
President Obama’s pick as chairman of the White House Council on Economic Advisors co-authored a paper that showed that extending unemployment benefits will likely exacerbate joblessness. The paper’s findings run counter to the president’s economic argument for an unemployment benefit extension, which is expected to be a major part of the jobs plan he will unveil early next month.
Princeton University economist Alan Krueger, who will replace Austan Goolsbee as the White House’s chief economic advisor, “is likely to provide a voice inside the administration for more-aggressive government action to bring down unemployment and, particularly, to address long-term joblessness,” according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
But will Krueger’s recommendations jive with the president’s apparent economic and political agenda? Kruegerco-authored a paper for the Handbook of Public Economics in 2002 that seems to undercut the economic argument for extending unemployment benefits. The paper found that those benefits tend to increase the length of unemployment by discouraging the search for a new job, and may actually encourage layoffs. Conversely, the paper also found that unemployed persons who are ineligible for benefits search harder for a job and are therefore unemployed for less time.
The president and his political allies have called for an unemployment benefit extension as a form of economic stimulus. Obama recently claimed that such an extension will “put money in people’s pockets and more customers in stores.” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney claimed that an extension of unemployment benefits could create up to a million jobs.
Liberal economic theory holds that additional government handouts will stimulate consumer demand, create economic activity, and therefore lead to greater employment as businesses take in more revenue. While Krueger did not examine the direct effect of unemployment benefits on economic growth, the 2002 NBER paper did conclude that such benefits do not alleviate, and may very well exacerbate unemployment.
“The empirical work on unemployment insurance (UI) and workers’ compensation (WC) insurance finds that the programs tend to increase the length of time employees spend out of work,” the abstract of Krueger’s paper states. The paper’s examination of others’ work on unemployment benefits finds that “the main labor supply effect of UI is to lengthen unemployment spells.”
The paper also finds that increasing the length of unemployment benefits directly contributes to unemployment. “[I]ncreases in either the level or potential duration of benefits raise the value of being unemployed,” the paper states, “reducing search intensity and increasing the reservation wage.” More generous unemployment benefits, in other words, reduce the incentive to find employment. “Higher and longer duration UI benefits,” the paper adds,” will cause unemployed workers who receive UI to take longer to find a new job.”
On the other hand, workers who are not eligible for unemployment benefits or who have approached or reached the maximum duration of benefits, are more likely to search for, and hence to find work. The study saw an increase in the “escape rate from unemployment for workers who currently do not qualify for benefits and for qualified workers close to when benefits are exhausted.” The study calls this the “entitlement effect.”
Like other entitlements, it is meant as a “social safety net,” not an economic recovery policy. There may be humanitarian reasons to extend unemployment benefits (with corresponding budget offsets), but as a jobs program, by Krueger’s account, the policy will probably fall flat.
Krueger’s paper focuses on economic incentives, and finds –perhaps unsurprisingly – that paying people for being out of work encourages employment in layoff-prone industries, and discourages the search for a new job once a worker is unemployed. It also tends to encourage employees to “work less hard on the current job,” the paper states, due to their knowledge that they will be eligible for unemployment benefits in the event of a layoff.
The moral hazard and skewed incentives of unemployment benefits do not create a healthier economic climate – from the perspective of employment, at least – Krueger’s paper finds. But the president has already signaled both his intention to extend unemployment benefits and his belief that they will, in fact, stimulate the struggling economy.
Will the president heed the findings of his newest chief economic advisor – who, for what it’s worth, supports the liberal political position on other high-profile issues – or stick to a dogmatically liberal approach in the face of Krueger’s own academic work?
The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 27)
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.
Rep. Todd Rokita voted against the Budget Control Act of 2011 because it fails to implement the long-term permanent and structural reforms necessary to put the nation back on a fiscally sustainable trajectory:
“I have heard a couple different definitions of leadership today. Let me add mine: leadership is effectively persuading others of the proper course of action. It is also about standing up for those who have no voice. For decades now, we have spent too much money on ourselves and have intentionally allowed our kids and grandkids to pay for it. It is intergenerational theft—literally stealing from our best asset, our posterity. The correct course of action, as I have said from the beginning, is to enact permanent and structural reform as the price for raising the debt ceiling. Today’s bill does not do that.
This legislation is a Washington deal, and it barely begins to address our long-term spending problem. Our debt crisis is driven by mandatory spending on entitlement programs and this plan fails to address such spending. Also, this plan only reduces the future debt we will pile on the backs of our kids from $10 trillion to around $7 trillion over the next decade. It does not begin to reduce our $14 trillion in current debt.
However, this legislation could eventually lead to the best permanent solution, a balanced budget amendment. This is certainly worth fighting for and I will lead on that front. But a vote alone is not worth the $2.5 trillion price tag, again to be paid by future generations. For that price, we should have required passage of a balanced budget amendment for state ratification.
I will continue to fight for a balanced budget amendment, lead our nation to live within its means and tackle out-of-control entitlement spending. It will be a long fight, but the enactment of a balanced budget amendment is the only way to fix the broken system that created this mess, both addressing our long-term fiscal health and giving Americans long-term peace of mind.”
President Obama doesn’t get it. He still wants to force the government to get poor people into the housing market even though they can not make the payments.
As the economy remains stalled, and the election draws closer, the Obama administration seems increasingly willing to consider proposals that will further distort the housing market and seem to have the ultimate goal of preserving a major role for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the two giant government sponsored enterprises at the core of the housing finance debacle that caused the Great Recession.
This is not really surprising considering we’re at the start of another election season when politicians are scrambling for goodies to sell for votes. Under the slogan of preserving the American Dream, the Obama election campaign is promising to resurrect the old policy of extending implicit government backing to Fannie and Freddie — if the President is re-elected.
The Obama Administration has outlined major policy initiatives to preserve a role for the same mortgage-lending giants that have had to be bailed out repeatedly since 2008 at taxpayer cost of $130 billion to date. The latest proposal would allow homeowners with underwater mortgages backed by Fannie and Freddie to refinance. This would be expected to transfer money from taxpayers to homeowners and, by increasing expected taxpayer burdens, is likely to delay economic recovery in consumer spending.
It is worth noting that the Administration’s recent report on housing policy begins by blaming the private sector for initiating riskier lending practices: To wit:
Initially, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were largely on the sidelines while private markets generated increasingly risky mortgages. Between 2001 and 2005, private-label securitizations of Alt-A and subprime mortgages grew fivefold, yet Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continued to primarily guarantee fully documented, high-quality mortgages.
This reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how private markets work — one that needs to be exorcised before we can move to better policies. The Administration’s statement assumes that private lenders’ business decisions and risk-taking activities occur in a vacuum. On the contrary, the very existence of Fannie and Freddie to subsidize and support home lending probably triggered private risk taking at the margin in that sector.
The long-standing and profitable operation of housing GSEs — their purchases of home-loans financed out of bond sales to the public at cheap rates because of the implicit government backing they enjoyed — generated a long-sustained upward spiral in home prices, reduced aggregate risk perceptions in home finance among private lenders, and attracted capital including foreign savings. That made Fannie and Freddie a part of the constellation of government policies that promoted a steep home price bubble — that eventually burst to deliver the Great Recession.
The correct policy prescription under a buoyant housing market would have been to withdraw the GSEs from the market, and transition to a self sustaining home finance sector. Such a policy, had it commenced during the early 2000s, could have injected caution and countered the growing perception of a risk-free bonanza in home lending that fed the housing price bubble. Instead, Fannie and Freddie’s appetite to preserve market share and profits was only whetted — as the historical record of their massive portfolio expansion by purchasing subprime loans clearly shows.
The Administration is now proposing to “wind down Fannie and Freddie on a responsible timeline,” (that is, remove the old names), to “address fundamental flaws in the mortgage market to protect borrowers, help ensure transparency for investors, and increase the role of private capital,” (that is, increase lending regulations that stifle the private market), and “target the government’s vital support for affordable housing in a more effective and transparent manner” (that is, create new government sponsored home-lending institutions and increase its role in home-finance).
Instead of admitting that the lesson of the housing debacle is that some segments of the population do not deserve and cannot sustain home purchases financed through government subsidized mortgages, the Obama administration’s proposals, including this latest one, seek to “serve the needs of families, lenders, and investors” (but not taxpayers, of course) to “makes us all better off” (again, taxpayers excluded).
Sometimes, when a company fails for reasons unconnected to its business model, its operators attempt to preserve it via cosmetic changes — a new name, new location, or different front-office personnel. Accenture, the business consulting firm — formerly a part of Arthur Andersen that was tainted in the Enron scandal — is now thriving. So is “Sunshine Financial,” the formerly failed “People’s First” home lending business in Florida. Look for something similar to happen to Fannie and Freddie — even though that “business model” has clearly failed.
The series I have been doing on “Advice to Gene Simmons” that I am starting what I am calling “Tip Tuesday.” For the next few months we will be looking at the Simmons family.
In the July 19th episode Nick said to his father “You were a great father but not a good spouse.”
On July 19th I watched Gene Simmons Family Jewels and I commented how I was struck by the good advice that his son Nick gave him. He told him that he grew up thinking that his father was the best. However, now that the marital infidility has come out, it has made Nick think long and hard about what other things in his father’s life are not like he thought they were.
Sophie went even farther and said that Gene “was not a good dad.” Both of these clips were repeated in this week’s episode on July 26th.
I felt like yelling at the tv: “WAKE UP GENE BUT THESE AFFAIRS ARE GOING TO COST YOU THE RELATIONSHIPS OF THOSE WHO TRULY LOVE YOU!!!!!CAN’T YOU SEE WHAT IS REALLY VALUABLE IN LIFE?”
In the message that Brandon Barnard brought to Fellowship Bible Church on July 24th he made a big point out of what the pathway of impurity is like. THE PATHWAY OF IMPURITY IS OPPRESSIVE AND COSTLY.
Then Brandon read these scriptures below:
Proverbs 5:21-23
English Standard Version (ESV)
21For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD,
and he ponders[a] all his paths. 22The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. 23 He dies for lack of discipline,
and because of his great folly he is led astray.
Proverbs 6:25-28
English Standard Version (ESV)
25 Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes; 26for the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread,[a]
but a married woman[b] hunts down a precious life. 27Can a man carry fire next to his chest
and his clothes not be burned? 28Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?
Proverbs 7:22-23
English Standard Version (ESV)
22All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter,
or as a stag is caught fast[a] 23till an arrow pierces its liver;
as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life.
We are going to address the subject of divorce because it is the theme of our Lord’s teaching in Mark chapter 10…Mark chapter 10. We’re going to be looking at the twelve verses that launch this chapter and it’s going to be in two parts, one this morning and another one next Sunday. So I’m going to let you know that so that you’re not wondering why I haven’t gotten to all of the issues that relate to this theme. I’m unable to do that until next Sunday and we’ll finish up this text next Sunday morning. And then next Sunday evening, I’m going to add a special message on the issue of divorce from 1 Corinthians chapter 7. That will give you the full picture of what the Scripture teaches about divorce. We’ve also put a little notice in Grace Today about the book, The Divorce Dilemma, which is a handy guide to take you through the Scripture to help you understand these issues.
We’re in Mark chapter 10, The Truth About Divorce. Now if you ask the question, how does God view divorce? There is a short answer. The short answer is given by God Himself in Malachi, the last prophecy at the end of your Old Testament, chapter 2 verse 16 where God says, “I hate divorce… I hate divorce.” That is God’s attitude toward a widely accepted, extremely popular and time-honored institution in human society…God hates divorce.
Aug. 24 marked the 41st anniversary of the Sterling Hall bombing on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
Four men planned the bomb at the height of the student protests over the Vietnam War. Back then, current Madison Mayor Paul Soglin was one of the leaders of those student protests in the capitol city. This weekend, Soglin recalled the unrest felt by UW-Madison students.
“The anti-war movement adopted a lot of its tactics and strategies from the civil rights movement which was about ten years older,” said Soglin. “It was one of picketing, demonstration, and passive resistance.”
The four men who planned the bombing focused on the Army Mathematics Research Center housed in Sterling Hall because it was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and therefore, worked on weapons technology. Karl Armstrong was one of the four men and he recently spoke with CBS News in his first television interview detailing the moments right before the bomb was set off.
“He asked me, he says, ‘Should we go ahead? Are we gonna do this?’ I think I made a comment to him about something like, ‘Now, I know what war is about,'” remembered Armstrong. “And I told him to light it.”
The bomb killed one researcher and father of three, 33-year-old Robert Fassnacht, although Armstrong maintains they planned the attack thinking no one would get hurt. The four men heard about the death as they were in their getaway car after the bomb went off.
“I felt good about doing the bombing, the bombing per se, but not taking someone’s life,” recalled Armstrong.
The researcher’s wife told CBS News that she harbors no ill will toward Armstrong and the other bombers. Three of the four men were captured and served time in prison. Armstrong served eight years of a 23-year sentence.
The fourth man, Leo Burt, was last seen in the fall of 1970 in Ontario and is to this day, still wanted by the FBI, with a $150,000 reward for his capture.
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).
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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: […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.” […]
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 [..
PRINT PAGE
CITE THIS
The Daily Hatch 