If you’re a taxpayer and you like beef jerky, I have good and bad news. The good news is that Jack Link’s is expanding the production facilities at its corporate home in Minong, Wisconsin. The bad news is the expansion is being “made possible” with a $365,000 federal grant to Minong for infrastructure upgrades.
The money comes from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program. Curiously, the state’s Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation doesn’t mention in the press release that the money is coming from federal taxpayers:
The Village of Minong will receive a $356,000 Community Development Block Grant for Public Facilities for Economic Development from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) to help finance utility improvements that will facilitate the expansion of Link Snacks, Inc. Link Snacks’ expansion is expected to create 70 full-time jobs over the next three years…
The Community Development Block Grant program is a versatile financing tool for general-purpose local units of government in need of funds to undertake needed infrastructure and public building projects. The program is designed to enhance the vitality of a community by undertaking public investment that contributes to its overall community and economic development.
The WEDC was created by Republican Gov. Scott Walker to replace the state’s Department of Commerce and is modeled after Gov. Mitch Daniels’ Indiana Economic Development Corporation. Like the IEDC, the WEDC dispenses corporate welfare and engages in what I derisively call “press release economics.” Given that the press release doesn’t mention that the money came from the federal government, and thus makes it look like the Walker administration is responsible for the “job creation,” I’d say that the WEDC has learned well from its cousin in Indiana.
The bottom line is that it is not a proper role of the federal government to fund local infrastructure projects for the benefit of a business. The bureaucratic inefficiency alone of laundering money through three levels of government (from federal to state to local) is reason enough to terminate the Community Development Block Grant program. Unfortunately, the CDBG program creates a win-win situation for politicians at all levels, which means that taxpayers are going to keep losing unless enough voters come to realize that robbing Peter to pay Paul’s company isn’t good economics.
The all-time, most-viewed post on this blog is this set of cartoons showing how the welfare state begins and how it eventually becomes an unsustainable mess.
The great Chuck Asay has a cartoon that takes the next step, showing what happens when the looters and moochers who ride in the wagon get pitted against those who are pulling the wagon.
Since I’m not a Romney fan (for a bunch of reasons outlined here), I would have preferred if the cartoon didn’t imply anything about the current election and instead focused on the rhetorical question of what happens to a society when those living off the government outnumber those who get stuck picking up the tab.
It also would have been more accurate to have the two slave drivers somehow identified as “politicians” and the “IRS.”
But it’s a very clever cartoon, so it’s worth sharing even if I’m nitpicking.
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. Dan Mitchell […]
I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet. (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on July 10, 2012. I don’t know which letter of mine generated this response so I have […]
Welfare reform was working so good. Why did we have to abandon it? Look at this article from 2003. The Continuing Good News About Welfare Reform By Robert Rector and Patrick Fagan, Ph.D. February 6, 2003 Six years ago, President Bill Clinton signed legislation overhauling part of the nation’s welfare system. The Personal Responsibility and […]
Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [3/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for […]
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. With the […]
Eight Reasons Why Big Government Hurts Economic Growth We got to cut these welfare programs before everyone stops working and wants to get the free stuff. The Bible says if you don’t work then you should not eat. It also says that churches should help the poor but it doesn’t say that the government should […]
Today, the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an official policy directive rewriting the welfare reform law of 1996. The new policy guts the federal work requirements that were the foundation of the reform law. The Obama directive bludgeons the letter and intent of the actual reform legislation.
Welfare Reform under Clinton
Welfare reform replaced the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children with a new program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The underlying concept of welfare reform was that able-bodied adults should be required to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving welfare aid.
The welfare reform law is often characterized as simply giving state governments more flexibility in operating welfare programs. This is a serious misunderstanding. While new law (the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996) did grants states more flexibility in some respects, the core of the act was the creation of rigorous new federal work standards that state governments were required to implement.
The welfare reform law was very successful. In the four decades prior to welfare reform, the welfare caseload never experienced a significant decline. But, in the four years after welfare reform, the caseload dropped by nearly half. Employment surged and child poverty among affected groups plummeted. The driving force behind these improvements was the rigorous new federal work requirements contained in the TANF law.
Obama’s Trick to Get Around Work Requirements
Today the Obama Administration issued a new directive stating that the traditional TANF work requirements can be waived or overridden by a legal device called the section 1115 waiver authority under the Social Security law (42 U.S.C. 1315).
Section 1115 states that “the Secretary may waive compliance with any of the requirements” of specified parts of various laws. But this is not an open-ended authority: Any provision of law that can be waived under section 1115 must be listed in section 1115 itself. The work provisions of the TANF program are contained in section 407 (entitled, appropriately, “mandatory work requirements”). Critically, this section, as well as most other TANF requirements, are deliberately not listed in section 1115; they are not waiveable.
In establishing TANF, Congress deliberately exempted or shielded nearly all of the TANF program from the section 1115 waiver authority. They did not want the law to be rewritten at the whim of Health and Human Services (HHS) bureaucrats. Of the roughly 35 sections of the TANF law, only one is listed as waiveable under section 1115. This is section 402.
Section 402 describes state plans—reports that state governments must file to HHS describing the actions they will undertake to comply with the many requirements established in the other sections of the TANF law. The authority to waive section 402 provides the option to waive state reporting requirements only, not to overturn the core requirements of the TANF program contained in the other sections of the TANF law.
The new Obama dictate asserts that because the work requirements, established in section 407, are mentioned as an item that state governments must report about in section 402, all the work requirements can be waived. This removes the core of the TANF program; TANF becomes a blank slate that HHS bureaucrats and liberal state bureaucrats can rewrite at will.
Congressional Research Service: “There Are No TANF Waivers”
In a December 2001 document, “Welfare Reform Waivers and TANF,” the non-partisan Congressional Research Service clarified that the limited authority to waive state reporting requirement in section 402 does not grant authority to override work and other major requirements in the other sections of the TANF law (sections that were deliberately not listed under the section 1115 waiver authority):
Technically, there is waiver authority for TANF state plan requirement; however, [the] major TANF requirements are not in state plans. Effectively, there are no TANF waivers.
Obviously, if the Congress had wanted HHS to be able to waive the TANF work requirements laid out in section 407, it would have listed that section as waiveable under section 1115. It did not do that.
Define “Work”…
In the past, state bureaucrats have attempted to define activities such as hula dancing, attending Weight Watchers, and bed rest as “work.” These dodges were blocked by the federal work standards. Now that the Obama Administration has abolished those standards, we can expect “work” in the TANF program to mean anything but work.
The new welfare dictate issued by the Obama Administration clearly guts the law. The Administration tramples on the actual legislation passed by Congress and seeks to impose its own policy choices—a pattern that has become all too common in this Administration.
Stimulating the economy comes from giving the private sector incentive to grow or in other words cutting taxes for job creators and not class warfare. Sadly we have had too many RINOS out there. The Tea Party is the answer for that. The liberal Arkansas Times blog runned by Max Brantley is upset that the Tea Party is making strides, but I hope they keep getting real spending conservatives in the Republican party. That is only hope or we will turn into Greece down the road.
I take the pro-market position in this special report on Fox News.
The discussion focuses on the following questions.
Does government spending create jobs? This is the discredited Keynesian notion that you become richer by switching money from your right pocket to left pocket, and I explain that this approach has never worked.
What does create jobs? I explain we need to shrink the burden of government and I cite my favorite Golden Rule about the importance of making sure the productive sector of the economy grows faster than the public sector.
Should there be more government workers? Anyone who has seen this video knows my answer to that question.
Is it a good idea to raise taxes on the rich? I argue that penalizing success doesn’t make sense, so class warfare tax policy should be rejected.
Would it help to impose higher taxes on corporations? Since the United States already penalizes companies with the world’s highest corporate tax rate, that question answers itself.
Dan Mitchell hits the nail on the head and sometimes it gets so sad that you just have to laugh at it like Conan does. In order to correct this mess we got to get people off of government support and get them in the private market place!!!!
A similar theme can be found in this great new cartoon from Chuck Asay.
And just in case you think Asay is being unfair, keep in mind that folks like Obama and Pelosi actually have claimed that more unemployment benefits is “stimulus.” Yes, you read correctly. Subsidizing unemployment is good for growth to these strange ideologues.
Late-night comedian Conan O’Brien’s blog has a new post parodying Washington’s excessive spending. “Team Coco has found out why our government is so broke,” the blog explains, “They’ve been spending all our hard earned tax dollars on some pretty ridiculous programs.” The post contains a list of humorous fake programs and encourages readers submit their own.
Washington will spend $2.6 million training Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job.
Because of overstaffing, the U.S. Postal Service selects 1,125 employees per day to sit in empty rooms. They are not allowed to work, read, play cards, watch television, or do anything. This costs $50 million annually.
Stimulus dollars have been spent on mascot costumes, electric golf carts, and a university study examining how much alcohol college freshmen women require before agreeing to casual sex.
Washington will spend $615,175 on an archive honoring the Grateful Dead.
The Securities and Exchange Commission spent $3.9 million rearranging desks and offices at its Washington, D.C., headquarters.
Congress recently gave Alaska Airlines $500,000 to paint a Chinook salmon on a Boeing 737.
Washington spends $25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties.
The Federal Communications Commission spent $350,000 to sponsor NASCAR driver David Gilliland.
Washington has spent $3 billion re-sanding beaches—even as this new sand washes back into the ocean.
Taxpayers are funding paintings of high-ranking government officials at a cost of up to $50,000 apiece.
The Conservation Reserve program pays farmers $2 billion annually not to farm their land.
And the list goes on and on. When it comes to government spending, the truth is often stranger than fiction.
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Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
Science Matters #2: Former supermodel Kathy Ireland tells Mike Huckabee about how she became pro-life after reading what the science books have to say. Everyone remembers Kathy Ireland from her Sports Illustrated days and actually she has became a very successful business person. However, I wanted to talk about her pro-life views. Back on […]
Richard Dawkins comments on Tim Tebow pro-life commercial. I am sad today because Susan G. Komen reversed their decision and will continue to supports Planned Parenthood which the USA’s largest abortion provider. The Arkansas Times Blog reported that the leader of Susan G. Komen apologized and explained that Planned Parenthood would be receiving funds from […]
This is going to take two posts to cover. Jason Tolbert hit the nail on the head in his recent post: It seems Democratic Rep. Garry Smith of El Dorado stepped into a bit of a mess this week when speaking to the newly formed Union County Democratic Club. Perhaps he wasn’t aware that intrepid […]
On the Arkansas Times blog in the comment section the person using username “Hackett” asserted: Life begins when the fetus is viable outside the womb, prior to that it is parasitical and lives at the discretion of the host. I responded with this post today: It seems to me the real argument lies in the […]
Richard Dawkins comments on Tim Tebow pro-life commercial. _________________________ On the Arkansas Times Blog, a person with the username “November” posted: You dont have the “choice” to kill and innocent child in the womb. No one gave the child a trial before killing it. The child is innocent, and the U S Constitution says you […]
PHOTO BY STATON BREIDENTHAL Marchers arrive at the state Capitol on Sunday after beginning the Arkansas March for Life in downtown Little Rock As in the past, the pr0-life March in Little Rock had at least twenty times the people in attendance that the pr0-abortion march did the previous day. In fact, last year Channel […]
Superbowl commercial with Tim Tebow and Mom. In Little Rock on January 21, 2012 in front of 100 pro-choice advocates met next to the Capitol to hear Loretta Ross speak. In that talk she pointed out something about her own experience. (Below is from another speech in which she recounts some of the same details.) […]
ABORTION – THE SILENT SCREAM 1 / Extended, High-Resolution Version (with permission from APF). Republished with Permission from Roy Tidwell of American Portrait Films as long as the following credits are shown: VHS/DVDs Available American Portrait Films Call 1-800-736-4567 http://www.amport.com The Hand of God-Selected Quotes from Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., Unjust laws exist. Shall we […]
Superbowl commercial with Tim Tebow and Mom. I used to write letters to the editor a whole lot back in the 1990′s. I am pro-life and many times my letters would discuss current political debates, and I got to know several names of people that would often write in response letters to my published letters. […]
Development of the Unborn Baby. Prolife Video There are people all around you who have been affected by humanism. Abortion is one of the results of humanism. Nevertheless, we can befriend those who are considering abortion and speak into their lives with love and truth. There may be those who say hateful things to us […]
“Jane Roe” or Roe v Wade is now a prolife Christian. She’s recently done a commercial about it. Around 1993 my wife Jill and I peacefully walked the streets of Little Rock with Rev Flip Benham who was working with Operation Rescue at the time. We held pro-life signs up and heard some moving stories […]
Bill O’Reilly Interviews Jehmu Greene About Pro-Life Super Bowl Ad about Tim Tebow I got these quotes from someone off the internet that lives in England. The funny thing is the video is put to music and the song they picked won a grammy for an Arkansas band that lives in Little Rock. Here is […]
Portugal is “on edge of abyss” reads the headline of a Reuters story last week. Despite receiving a $104.5 billion bailout last year from the EU and the IMF, the country’s economy continues to shrink as unemployment soars and uncertainty about its permanence in the euro remains steady. Just like Greece, Portugal might need a second bailout soon.
As has been the case elsewhere, some pundits claim that austerity is in part responsible for Portugal’s current economic malaise. Even the IMF has said that deficit targeting “may not be the best policy” if the country falls deeper into recession. The question then is what we understand by “austerity.”
First, it is important to point out that Portugal got in trouble for having a government that spent too much over a long time. Back in 2001 the country was the first to breach the 3% of GDP deficit ceiling agreed to as part of the Stability and Growth Pact. Since then, it ran significant budget deficits, and in 2009, as a reaction to the global downturn, Portugal implemented a massive stimulus package that shot its deficit to 9.4% of GDP. (It is worth noting that the stimulus didn’t work, unemployment went up from 9.5% in 2009 to 14.9% now).
* Using GDP deflator. Source: European Commission, Economic and Financial Affairs.
Spending in nominal terms increased on average by 5.6% every year from 2000 to 2010. As we can see in the graph, it accelerated in 2009 as the Socialist government of José Socrates tried to fend off the global recession with a Keynesian-style stimulus. It was not until 2011 that the new government of Pedro Passos Coelho began implementing spending cuts, which reduced overall spending by 5.5% from the previous year. Still, government spending in 2011 was at the same level of 2009. In real terms, there has been no decline in spending levels.
As a percentage of the size of the economy, total government spending in Portugal in 2011 stood at 45.2% of GDP, just a whisker down from its 2009 peak of 45.8%.
Early on Socrates tried to tame the deficit with tax increases. He raised the VAT rate from 19% to 21%. As part of last year’s the bailout agreement, Passos Coelho raised the VAT further to 23%, one of the highest rates in Europe. His government also introduced changes in the income tax: some rebates were scrapped; a surtax of 1.5% and 2.5% was introduced for middle and high income earners, respectively. A special corporate tax rate of 12.5% for small businesses was raised to 20%, and a surtax of 3% and 5% was created for medium and big companies, respectively. There were also tax increases on alcohol, fuel and tobacco.
The evidence suggests that even though in the last year there have been measurable spending cuts in Portugal (and I’m sure that people there are feeling the pinch from those cuts), tax increases constitute a significant chunk of the austerity policies implemented in that country.
Interview with Tim Foreman and Chad Butler airing February 26th, 2007.
Discuss: cowbell, Christianity, fan connection
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Switchfoot is a Christian Band with a great message (Part 2)
One of my favorite bands is Switchfoot. Tim Foreman is the front man and this band has always been very vocal about their Christian faith. I am really enjoying this series on their band.
Andrew Shirley – guitar – Birthday (married with a daughter)
Switchfoot Bio:
Switchfoot is an alternative rock band from San Diego, CA, that was formed in 1996 by brothers Jon and Tim Foreman and their surfing buddy, Chad Butler. Though they competed in national surf championships on weekends and were good enough to earn product endorsements from equipment companies, their real passion was music. The guys formed a band (originally known as Chin Up) and they released three albums before making their major label debut in 2003.In 2001, Jerome Fontimillas joined the band playing keys, guitar, and singing background vocals.
Drew Shirley started touring with the band as a guitarist in 2003. He officially joined Switchfoot in 2005.
My niece Mallory Nail went to see Switchfoot in concert at John Brown University on Oct 14, 2011 and I am very jealous. 969 Switchfoot Interview #2 Interview with Tim Foreman and Chad Butler airing March 13th, 2007. Discuss: idea of success, fan interaction ________________________________________ Switchfoot is a Christian Band with a great message (Part […]
Ms. Jackson’s agency takes over automobile design.
re’s one good way to consider the vote in 2012: It’s about whether to re-elect President Lisa Jackson, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, which these days runs most the U.S. economy.
The EPA heaved its weight against another industry this month, issuing a regulation to sharply increase fuel economy. Under this new rule, America’s fleet of passenger cars and light trucks will have to meet an average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, a doubling of today’s average of about 27 mpg. By the EPA’s estimate the rule will cost $157 billion, meaning the real number is vastly greater.
The fuel-economy rule is classic Obama EPA. Until this Administration, fuel standards were the remit of Congress, via its Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program. In 2007, the legislative branch raised those standards with a bill requiring the U.S. fleet to hit 35 miles per gallon by 2020, a 40% increase. The industry is struggling to keep pace with those steep requirements.
President Jackson is now casting aside 35 years of Congressional prerogative. Because the Obama EPA has declared carbon dioxide a “pollutant,” and because cars emit CO2, Ms. Jackson is citing the Clean Air Act in her bid to commandeer Detroit. While the EPA officially worked with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (Nhtsa, the agency previously in charge of efficiency standards), it’s clear the EPA is calling the shots.
At least when Nhtsa was overseeing efficiency, it was charged by Congress with taking into account vehicle safety and a rule’s effect on the economy and consumer demand. The EPA can’t be bothered with such detail.
Associated PressEnvironmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson
The National Automobile Dealers Association, which has opposed the EPA rule, has compiled Obama Administration documents showing the average price of a new vehicle will increase by $3,100 by 2025, thanks to the cumulative fuel-efficiency rules. Vehicles that currently cost $15,000 or less will effectively be regulated out of existence. The rule will reduce the mass of a car by 15% to 25%, decreasing safety.
The only way Detroit can hit these averages will be by turning at least 25% of its fleet into hybrids. But hybrid sales peaked in the U.S. two years ago at 3% of the market and are declining. The EPA’s $157 billion price tag includes only the estimate of what manufacturers will have to invest in new technology, not the billions more that will hemorrhage when nobody buys their EPA-approved products.
Yes, 13 automakers agreed to this standard in July, confirming behavioral science on hostages. The industry has been living for years under the threat of California’s strict efficiency mandate. Federal law pre-empts states from setting their own standards, and the Bush Administration refused to grant California a waiver. But the Obama administration made clear to automakers that their choice was between one crushing EPA-devised rule, or a national patchwork of crushing rules from California and acolyte states. They chose the federal poison.
House Republicans are pushing to return efficiency standards to the one regulator Congress has decreed: Nhtsa. They note that not only are California bureaucrats dictating federal policy, but the EPA has wasted $25 million to duplicate or demolish Nhtsa rules.
The EPA is seeking to impose, by fiat, greenhouse gas reductions that even a Democratic Congress rejected with the Waxman-Markey bill in 2009, and that would drive policy at least 13 years past this Administration. It’s all more than a tad authoritarian. Welcome to the Obama-Jackson Presidency.
Francis Schaeffer discussed modern films and how they showed the state of man. That is why I like Woody Allen’s films so much. He knows what the big issues are in life and even though he present the right answers he does grapple with the right questions. Michelangelo Antonioni heavily influenced Allen and below is a picture from one of his best well known films.
<The Kobal Collection
Blow-Up (1966). Michelangelo Antonioni created waves with his first English-language film when he turned his camera on swinging London as personified by a cocky fashion photographer (David Hemmings) who believes his lens has accidentally captured a murder.
Allen’s observation: “Not in the same class as the other films, but interesting to see.”
Learning to Cry for the Culture Let’s remember Francis Schaeffer’s most crucial legacy–tears.
John FischerMarch 19, 2007He was a small man—barely five feet in his knickers, knee socks, and ballooning white shirts. For two weeks, first as a freshman and then again as a senior, I sat in my assigned seat at Wheaton College’s chapel and heard him cry. He was the evangelical conscience at the end of the 20th century, weeping over a world that most of his peers dismissed as not worth saving, except to rescue a few souls in the doomed planet’s waning hours. While Hal Lindsey was disseminating an exit strategy in The Late Great Planet Earth, Francis Schaeffer was trying to understand and care for people still trapped on the planet in The God Who Is There.Francis Schaeffer was hard to listen to. His voice grated. It was a high-pitched scream that, when mixed with his eastern Pennsylvania accent, sounded something like Elmer Fudd on speed. As freshmen, unfamiliar with the thought and works of modern man, we thought it was funny. As seniors, it wasn’t funny any more. After we had studied Kant, Hegel, Sartre, and Camus, the voice sounded more like an existential shriek. If Edvard Munch’s The Screamhad a voice, it would have sounded like Francis Schaeffer. Schaeffer, who died in 1984, understood the existential cry of humanity trapped in a prison of its own making. He was the closest thing to a “man of sorrows” I have seen.I grew up with a Christianity that was predisposed against sorrow. To be sad was to deny your faith or your salvation. Jesus had made us happy, and we had an obligation to always show that happiness. Then Francis Schaeffer came along. He could not allow himself to be happy when most of the world was desperately lost and he knew why. He was the first Christian I found who could embrace faith and the despair of a lost humanity at the same time. Though he had been found, he still knew what it was to be lost.How different from the perception of conservative Christians held by so many people today! Today, the Religious Right is caricatured in society as a theocratic movement with no concern for the poor and downtrodden. Of course, such an ugly stereotype, presented as fact in a spate of pre-election books ranging from American Theocracy to Thy Kingdom Come, overlooks crisis pregnancy centers, humanitarian work, and generous giving to causes sacred and secular by members of the Christian Right.Schaeffer’s Way
However, like most stereotypes, this one of politically engaged conservative Christians contains a painful element of truth. Too often we confuse our agendas with God’s agenda and demonize our opponents in a desperate attempt to score political points. What’s ironic is that many of today’s culture warriors look to Schaeffer as the man who fired the first shot.
Yes, in two of Schaeffer’s later works, How Should We Then Live? (1976) and A Christian Manifesto (1981), he took a strong stand against abortion and euthanasia and even called for serious measures, including political intervention, to stop what he saw as impending cultural suicide. But to conclude that this invocation to war was Schaeffer’s crowning achievement is to truncate the man and his work.
Though his last words may have resounded like a battle cry to the next generation of Christians locked in a culture war, everything leading up to them said something else. Schaeffer’s work is ultimately not a call to arms, but a call to care. Those who have taken up arms and claimed him as their champion have gotten only part of his message.
Schaeffer never meant for Christians to take a combative stance in society without first experiencing empathy for the human predicament that brought us to this place. Those who go back only as far as A Christian Manifesto—without also understanding Escape from Reason (1968), The God Who Is There (1968), and Death in the City (1970)—are doing Schaeffer’s life and work a great disservice. The later Schaeffer cannot be divorced from the former.
Weeping over the World
Schaeffer was the first Christian leader who taught me to weep over the world instead of judging it. Schaeffer modeled a caring and thoughtful engagement with the history of philosophy and its influence through movies, novels, plays, music, and art. Schaeffer was teaching at Wheaton College about the existential dilemma expressed in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film, Blowup, when movies were still forbidden to students. He didn’t bat an eye. He ignored our legalism and went on teaching, because he had been personally gripped by the desperation of such cultural statements.
Death in the City is the book of Lamentations in the Old Testament applied to America. It is all about weeping over the death of a culture. Schaeffer saw the most brilliant thinkers and artists of his day as trapped under what he called a line of despair—in a lower-story hopelessness without any access to upper-story revelation. Schaeffer taught his followers not to sneer at or dismiss the dissonance in modern art. He showed how these artists were merely expressing the outcome of the presuppositions of the modern era that did away with God and put all conclusions on a strictly human, rational level. Instead of shaking our heads at a depressing, dark, abstract work of art, the true Christian reaction should be to weep for the lost person who created it. Schaeffer was a rare Christian leader who advocated understanding and empathizing with non-Christians instead of taking issue with them.
Francis Schaeffer was not afraid to ask why, and he did not rest until he had an answer. Why are our most brilliant thinkers in despair? Why is our art so dark? Why have abortion and euthanasia become so easy on the conscience of a generation? What process of thinking has led to this ultimate denial of the value of human life? Though some may disagree with his answers, no one can gainsay the passion with which he sought them.
The normal human reaction is to hate what we don’t understand. This is the stuff of prejudice and the cause of hate crimes and escalating social evil. It is much more Christ-like to identify with those we don’t understand—to discover why people do what they do, because we care about them, even if they are our ideological enemies.
Jesus asked us to love our enemies. Part of loving is learning to understand. Too few Christians today seek to understand why their enemies think in ways that we find abhorrent. Too many of us are too busy bashing feminists, secular humanists, gay activists, and political liberals to consider why they believe what they do. It’s difficult to sympathize with people we see as threats to our children and our neighborhoods. It’s hard to weep over those whom we have declared enemies.
Perhaps a good beginning would be to more fully grasp the depravity of our own souls and the depth to which God’s grace had to go to reach us. I doubt we can cry over the world if we’ve never cried over ourselves.
To be sure, Francis Schaeffer’s influence has declined in recent years, as postmodernism has supplanted the modernity he dissected for so long. Schaeffer is not without his critics, even among Christians. But perhaps, in the end, his greatest influence on the church will not be his words as much as his tears. The same things that made Francis Schaeffer cry in his day should make us cry in ours.
Singer-songwriter John Fischer has recorded 12 albums and is the author of 15 books.
In 1955, Schaeffer founded L’Abri fellowship, “where individuals have the opportunity to seek answers to honest questions about God and the significance of human life.”
The Dissatisfaction of Francis Schaeffer (Parts 1 and 2) | Thirteen years after his death, Schaeffer’s vision and frustrations continue to haunt evangelicalism. (March 1997)
Here is an episode of Schaeffer’s film series that discusses the philosophic movies that show man’s desperation:
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.
The Daily Hatch 