Monthly Archives: May 2013

John MacArthur on Proverbs (Part 5) “Control your body” Chapter 5 follows it up. Verse 1, “My son, give attention to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding that you may observe discretion, that your lips may reserve knowledge.” Here’s a very important lesson for the son, “The lips of an adulteress drip honey and smoother than oil is her speech, her kisses are sweet and she’s going to sweet talk you but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two‑edged sword, her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of Sheol, she doesn’t ponder the path of life, her ways are unstable, she doesn’t know it. And now then, my sons, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth, keep your way far from her and don’t go near the door of her house and don’t give your vigor to others.”

May 14, 2013 – 1:44 am

Over and over in Proverbs you hear the words “fear the Lord.” In fact, some of he references are Proverbs 1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10;14:26,27; 15:16 and many more. Below is a sermon by John MacArthur from the Book of Luke on 3 reasons we should fear the Lord. (I have posted John MacArthur’s amazing sermon on the fulfillment of Old Testament scripture before on my blog.)

PART 5

I have written about this issue of controlling your body over and over in the past. Gene Simmons is the perfect example of a person that has tried to seek pleasure outside of marriage while trying to raise a family at the same time. It just doesn’t work and Gene had to give up his girlfriends in order to save his marriage. (Tyson Ritter of the All-American Rejects has also discovered that womanizing is not the way to go.) Landry Jones the star quarterback of the Oklahoma Sooners did it right by dating his girlfriend in a Christian setting and they were married a couple of years later. Saving themselves for marriage.

Gene Simmons pictured above with his wife.

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John MacArthur

I remember hearing Dr. Adrian Rogers say that if he had to do it over again he would read from Proverbs every day to his kids. They turned out to be great kids and they were raised right. Nevertheless, if he had to do it over again he thought a more emphasis on Proverbs is the way to go. That is why I am spending so much time in Proverbs with my kids today.

John MacArthur does a great job on Proverbs and here is a portion of his sermon on Proverbs.

Fifth, control your body. Any witting father who has any sense at all realizes that young men are going to develop passions that can lead them in to tragedy upon tragedy unless they learn how to control their body, their bodily desires. And as you get in to this section, this is THE dominant theme throughout these first few chapters of Proverbs. Go to chapter 2 for a moment, verse 16, this is repeated and we don’t have time to go in to all of it but I’ll give you a little sense of what the writer says…2:16, he’s talking about wisdom and wisdom alone, that is the wisdom of God, spiritual wisdom that a father is supposed to teach his son, is able to deliver you from the strange woman. Well what does the word strange mean? Foreign. Why do you have to worry about a foreign woman? Because she’s away from home. Well what does that mean? Well she’s away from her husband, she’s away from her family, she’s away from her friends, she’s away from accountability and so being…she’s the out‑of‑town woman, if you will. And it’s real easy for her to act any way she wants because the constraints are off. You beware of that roaming woman who is away from the point of her responsibility. Beware of the adulteress who flatters with her words, that leaves the companion of her youth…that’s her husband…and forgets the covenant of her God…that’s her marriage vow. Beware of her because her house sinks down to death and her tracks lead to the dead. Why? Because adultery by biblical prescription required the death penalty. She’ll bring you to death.

Some think that this is a reference also to a venereal disease or even to the divine intervention of God in an act of punishment. But I think the primary issue here is way back to Deuteronomy chapter 22 where God says people who commit adultery are to be executed. Passion is as strong as it is, however, as evidenced by the fact that men who would know they would have perhaps to lose their life would still follow their passion. At the moment in time lust for sex outweighs the desire to live. Stay away, teach your son sexual self‑control, Father, so he doesn’t destroy his life, destroy his family.

Chapter 5 follows it up. Verse 1, “My son, give attention to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding that you may observe discretion, that your lips may reserve knowledge.” Here’s a very important lesson for the son, “The lips of an adulteress drip honey and smoother than oil is her speech, her kisses are sweet and she’s going to sweet talk you but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two‑edged sword, her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of Sheol, she doesn’t ponder the path of life, her ways are unstable, she doesn’t know it. And now then, my sons, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth, keep your way far from her and don’t go near the door of her house and don’t give your vigor to others.” That is, don’t procreate through others. Don’t give your years to the cruel one and let strangers be filled with your strength and your hard earned goods go the house of an alien. Don’t have to support the children of some woman that isn’t even in your home. Don’t give away your seed to someone else. Don’t create children through someone else. Don’t give your strength to another family and have to spend the rest of your life paying some kind of alimony or whatever. In the end your flesh and body are consumed. You’ll say, “How I have hated instruction and my heart spurned reproof and I haven’t listened to the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to my instructor.” Some day you’re going to say I wish I would have done what my dad told me. Teach your son sexual purity.

Chapter 6 takes it further, verse 20 and all the way down to the end, pick it up in verse 24, “Wisdom is given to you to keep you from the evil woman, the smooth tongue of the adulteress, don’t desire her beauty in your heart, don’t let her catch you with her eyelids, for on account of a harlot one is reduced to a loaf of bread.” She’ll turn you into nothing quick. An adulteress hunts for the precious life. There you are, this precious life, she just wants to hunt you. Can you take fire in your bosom and your clothes not be burned? Can you walk on hot coals and your feet not be scorched? So is the one who goes in to his neighbor’s wife, whoever touches her will not go unpunished. It’s going to cost you and it’s going to cost you dearly. Verse 32, “Anyone who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense. He who would destroy himself does it.” Why do people do that? “Wounds and disgrace he will find. And his reproach will not be blotted out.” Let me tell you, an adulterer has a reproach not blotted out. You know, that’s a good thing to keep in mind when you remember that it says in 1 Timothy 3 that one who is an elder must be above reproach. And if an elder or a pastor falls in to sexual sin and adultery, this text says that approach will not be blotted out. And once you bear that reproach and that stigma, it appears to be a permanent one, a permanent disqualification. That’s a heavy price to pay.

Chapter 7, the whole chapter is devoted to a fascinating scenario. We can pick it up in verse 6, here’s the victim, this hair‑brained, feather‑headed, naive guy wanders in to temptation. He’s in the part of town he shouldn’t be in. She’s at the window of the house looking out through the lattice. I saw among the naive, I discerned among the youths a young man lacking sense…just the kind she likes. Who was passing through the street near her corner and he takes the way to her house. He knows what he’s doing, he’s down in a part of the city he has no business being in, he’s roaming around in his stupidity, not knowing what he’s going to get in to. That’s the victim.

The hunt starts in verse 10. There he is in the twilight in the evening in the middle of the night and she comes, verse 10, she comes to meet him dressed as a harlot, cunning of heart, boisterous, rebellious, her feet do not remain at home, she is now in the streets, now in the squares and lurks by every corner. That’s the hunt. The tactics…look at how she goes after this guy. Verse 13, this is what’s known as the direct approach, she seizes him and kisses him. Whoa! I remember walking through Iponema(?) one time in Brazil and having a harlot grab me and a harlot pull on my coat and literally…I kept walking and she kept yanking on my coat insisting that I go with her. That was the direct approach. And I kept whacking at her hand to get off my coat. Nothing new, they’ve done it that way before, I guess. Verse 14, she gives him this business…I was due to offer peace offerings, today I paid my vows. In other words, help me celebrate, this is a big religious day for me so will you come and help me with my religious celebration? And then comes flattery in verse 15, “O therefore I have come out to meet you to seek your presence earnestly and I…you’re just the guy I was looking for.” Sure. Just the one I sought.

Then the sensual seduction, “I spread my couch with coverings, with colored linen of Egypt, sprinkled my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon, come let us drink our fill of love until morning, let us delight ourselves with caresses.” This is sensual seduction. And then she gives him the safety pitch, verse 19, “The man is not at home, he’s on a long journey, he’s taken a bag of money with him, at full moon he’ll come home.” In other words, he’s got so much money because he’s got so much business to do and he’s going to be there a while, you’ve got nothing to worry about.

And after all of those attempts she finally tries to kill him with words, verse 21, “With her many persuasions she entices him with her flattering lips she seduces him.” She talks him to death, just talk, talk, talk, keep the seduction going. Then comes the kill. Suddenly he follows her…stupid feather‑brained naive guy…as an ox to slaughter and one in chains to the discipline of a fool until an arrow pierces through his liver as a bird hastens to the snare, so he doesn’t know that it will cost him his life. The end of verse 27 says he goes into the chambers of death.

Teach your son that. Teach your son sexual purity. Teach your son to control his body. Chapter 9 verses 13 to 18 go further through that scenario…a woman of folly who wants to lead you to the grave. Sure stolen water is sweet and bread eaten in secret is pleasant but it will kill you…it will kill you. Teach your son, keep mentally away. Don’t go to certain places in town. Don’t get caught in certain comprising situations. Keep your hands to yourself. Stay away from women like that. Guard your feet. Guard your eyes. Guard your ears. Teach your son that. Control his body for purity and he’ll be a delight to you and blessed by God.

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ONE FINAL QUESTION: WHAT DO THESE VERSES MEAN?

PROVERBS 5:1-6

1-2 Dear friend, pay close attention to this, my wisdom;
listen very closely to the way I see it.
Then you’ll acquire a taste for good sense;
what I tell you will keep you out of trouble.

3-6 The lips of a seductive woman are oh so sweet,
her soft words are oh so smooth.
But it won’t be long before she’s gravel in your mouth,
a pain in your gut, a wound in your heart.
She’s dancing down the primrose path to Death;
she’s headed straight for Hell and taking you with her.
She hasn’t a clue about Real Life,
about who she is or where she’s going.

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

Francis Schaeffer’s wife Edith passes away on Easter weekend 2013 Part 19 (includes pro-life editorial cartoon)

May 14, 2013 – 1:28 am

The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story Pt.1 – Today’s Christian Videos

The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story – Part 3 of 3

Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE

Published on Oct 6, 2012 by

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Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the 1930′s above. I was sad to read about Edith passing away on Easter weekend in 2013. I wanted to pass along this fine article below although I don’t agree with all of it.

Apr 1 2013
She helped us see art and beauty’s place in Christian life.

Edith Seville Schaeffer, co-founder of L’Abri and author of more than a dozen books, died Saturday at age 98.

In her autobiography, The Tapestry, Edith emerges as a woman overflowing with beauty, energy, creativity, and love, a woman whose every encounter seems to have been “charg’d with the grandeur of God.” In a time when evangelicals were suspicious of all things worldly, Edith reveled in music and dance, in her neat little figure and in beautiful clothes: “I was 5-foot-2 and weighed 102 pounds and wore clothes that looked like they had come out of the best shops” she tells us, breathlessly, as an example of why she didn’t measure up to the standards of Christian womanhood at that time, which, apparently, included dowdiness as well as a rejection of culture. She was intelligent and full of conviction. She had a lot to say.

Despite not measuring up in some ways, Edith epitomized, and perhaps helped to establish, standards of Christian womanhood: resourcefulness, self-denial, femininity. She worked tirelessly as a seamstress in their Philadelphia apartment while her husband Francis Schaeffer studied in seminary, thoughtfully packing identical lunches for them as a way of being “together when apart,” so that they could taste the same flavors and feel the same “degree of hunger” by dinnertime. As a young pastor’s wife and mother, she single-handedly catered weddings, complete with hand-filled cream puffs. She sewed beautiful clothes for her children, read to them from the classics, and took them to art museums, all, of course, while keeping her figure and continuing to wear good clothes, pearls, makeup, Chanel No. 5., and, after the children were tucked into bed, a black negligee.

When I was growing up, my dad had the hardback, rainbow colored Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer on his bookshelves; Edith’s books—What is a Family?, Common Sense Christian Living, The Hidden Art of Homemaking, and of course, L’Abri, were scattered throughout the house. Elementary days homeschooling often began with an object lesson from Everybody Can Know; before I was out of high school I’d read every Edith Schaeffer book in the house, studying what it meant to be a good Christian woman. As a college student living in decidedly ugly dormitories, I read and re-read a library copy of Hidden Art trying to bring an aesthetic sensibility to my everyday life: writing out my notes neatly and beautifully, artistically arranging the loathsome cafeteria food on the unaesthetic plates and trays, and, occasionally, bringing in fresh flowers. Seeing the copy of Hidden Art tucked into my bag, a friend who also felt the aesthetic deprivations of college life remarked, “Yes. That book is nourishment.”

Comments

Displaying 1–10 of 12 comments

Joan Oliver

April 02, 2013

Though I was never at L’Abri, my husband and I read all the F. Schaeffer books we could and I read a couple of Edith’s. I always thought of her as the perfect wife–calming, partnering–to Francis and a great creative woman of God on her own. Thanks for this article, Rachel. Though there is sadness in the “revelations” about the family, there has always been the awareness the God is sovereign.

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Rob Shearer

April 02, 2013

Frank Schaeffer’s provocative charges about his father remain unsubstantiated. Frank has, throughout his life, been much given to hyperbole, and has adopted a decidedly negative view of evangelical culture and theology. I’m sure he is convinced of the truth of what he has written. Others who knew the Schaeffers intimately do not share his views or judgments. The daughters & sons-in-law of Francis & Edith have refused to engage in a public debate with their brother (-in-law). I would encourage charity and respect for both Edith and Francis, and a bit of skepticism about Frank’s charges.

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Daniel Becker

April 02, 2013

Arriving at L’abri late one evening, my betrothed and I found there was “no room in the inn” (the men’s and women’s dorms). When Edith found out she immediately offered us a spot on her living room floor at their home Chalet Les Melez. She suggested we roll out our sleeping bags under her dining room table. The next morning we awoke to the sun shining through the picture window revealing an brilliant alpine panorama. Susan was asked by Edith to help make breakfast for the other guests. I remember how the simple meal of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches was transformed by the cutting of this simple fare into a variety of differently shaped pinafores. Susan never forgot this small act of creativity. Our own home of 31 years enjoyed this same expression of hospitality—all because of a small petite woman who loved God and expressed her devotion through many simple acts of love, kindness and a generous spirit of hospitality.

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MILDRED B SALMON

April 01, 2013

“apparently included dowdiness…” Maybe, if you are in the here and now trying to look back. More likely a desire to obey Paul’s “dress modestly” with very modest means. Or sending children to school acceptably dressed and Mom’s dress based on what was left in the budget. Many of those perceived as “doudy” were also full of conviction. Edith’s viewpoints inspired them to use their own creativity and available resources to enhance their world of home and family, just as she inspired you –and me.

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Is the unborn baby the woman’s property or not? Take a look at this editorial cartoon.

(Francis did a great job in his film series “How Should we then live?” in looking at how humanism has affected art and culture in the Western World in the last 2000 years. My favorite episodes include his study of the Renaissance, the Revolutionary age, the age of Nonreason, and the age of Fragmentation.)

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

Open letter to President Obama (Part 318)

May 14, 2013 – 1:12 am

Government Must Cut Spending

Uploaded by on Dec 2, 2010

The government can cut roughly $343 billion from the federal budget and they can do so immediately.

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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.

The stimulus program did not help, but getting government out of the way would!!!! Take a look at this great article that goes over several examples through history.

The great Ronald Reagan famously said (and I am paraphrasing, since I do not remember the exact phrase) that the most dangerous words in the English language were “I am from Washington and I am here to help you.”

Those are very wise words, especially when we think of the damage politicians have done because of their impulse to “do something” when the economy stumbles. The problem is not that there is nothing that needs to be fixed. The problem is that the crowd in Washington is far more likely to make things worse rather than better.

And who better to explain this than Thomas Sowell.

Sowell starts his most recent column by explaining that politicians who want to “do something” almost always want to expand the burden of government spending, but he notes that this approach has meant deeper recessions and more economic suffering. And he cites Warren Harding as an example of a President who rejected the notion that bigger government was some sort of economic elixir.

…you might think that the economy requires government intervention to revive and create jobs. It is Beltway dogma that the government has to “do something.” History tells a different story. For the first 150 years of this country’s existence, the federal government felt no great need to “do something” when the economy turned down. Over that long span of time, the economic downturns were neither as deep nor as long lasting as they have been since the federal government decided that it had to “do something” in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, which set a new precedent. One of the last of the “do nothing” presidents was Warren G. Harding. In 1921, under President Harding, unemployment hit 11.7 percent — higher than it has been under President Obama. Harding did nothing to get the economy stimulated. Far from spending more money to try to “jump start” the economy, President Harding actually reduced government spending.

Can we learn any lessons from Harding’s anti-Keynesian approach? Assuming we want more growth and less unemployment, the answer is yes (and we can also learn the lesson that Hoover was a moronic statist from the very beginning).

President Harding deliberately rejected the urging of his own Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, to intervene. The 11.7 percent unemployment rate in 1921 fell to 6.7 percent in 1922, and then to 2.4 percent in 1923. It is hard to think of any government intervention in the economy that produced such a sharp and swift reduction in unemployment as was produced by just staying out of the way and letting the economy rebound on its own. Bill Clinton loudly proclaimed to the delegates to the Democratic National Convention that no president could have gotten us out of the recession in just one term. But history shows that the economy rebounded out of a worse unemployment situation in just two years under Harding, who simply let the market revive on its own, as it had done before, time and time again for more than a century.

Allow me to actually quibble with what Sowell wrote. Harding didn’t “let the market revive on its own.” He helped the economy grow faster by shrinking the federal budget. As Jim Powell explained in National Review, “Federal spending was cut from $6.3 billion in 1920 to $5 billion in 1921 and $3.2 billion in 1922.”

That’s a stunning statistic, akin to cutting more than $1.5 trillion from today’s bloated federal budget.

Sowell  also cites the achievements of the Gipper. Since I’ve posted some powerful comparisons of Reaganomics and Obamanomics, this is music to my ears.

Something similar happened under Ronald Reagan. Unemployment peaked at 9.7 percent early in the Reagan administration. Like Harding and earlier presidents, Reagan did nothing, despite outraged outcries in the media. The economy once again revived on its own. Three years later, unemployment was down to 7.2 percent — and it kept on falling, as the country experienced twenty years of economic growth with low inflation and low unemployment. The Obama party line is that all the bad things are due to what he inherited from Bush, and the few signs of recovery are due to Obama’s policies beginning to pay off. But, if the economy has been rebounding on its own for more than 150 years, the question is why it has been so slow to recover under the Obama administration.

By the way, Sowell also could have mentioned what happened in the United States immediately after World War II. The Keynesians were predicting a return to depression because of big reductions in government spending and the demobilization of millions of troops. But as Richard Vedder and Jason Taylor explained for the Cato Institute, the economy quickly adjusted and rebounded precisely because politicians didn’t revive the New Deal (and, as you can see from this video, President Reagan understood this bit of economic history).

Sowell also explains how FDR made a bad situation worse in the 1930s.

A great myth has grown up that President Franklin D. Roosevelt saved the American economy with his interventions during the Great Depression of the 1930s. But a 2004 economic study concluded that government interventions had prolonged the Great Depression by several years. Obama is repeating policies that failed under FDR.

In previous posts, I have cited both Sowell and the Wall Street Journal to make this very point, but I also call your attention to this post referencing the seminal work of Robert Higgs, as well as this video on the pernicious role of government intervention in the 1930s.

Last but not least, check out this video to understand more about FDR and his malignant views.

P.S. Fans of Professor Sowell can read more of his work here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. And you can see him in action here.

______

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

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Bill Clinton, President Obama, Ronald Reagan, spending out of control | Comments (0)

Truth Tuesday:Crash course on existentialism with Sartre by Wes Widner

May 14, 2013 – 1:10 am

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

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

The clip above is from episode 9 THE AGE OF PERSONAL PEACE AND AFFLUENCE

10 Worldview and Truth

In above clip Schaeffer quotes Paul’s speech in Greece from Romans 1 (from Episode FINAL CHOICES)

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

A Christian Manifesto Francis Schaeffer

Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR

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I love the works of Francis Schaeffer and I have been on the internet reading several blogs that talk about Schaeffer’s work and the work below was really helpful. Schaeffer’s film series “How should we then live?  Wikipedia notes, “According to Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live traces Western history from Ancient Rome until the time of writing (1976) along three lines: the philosophic, scientific, and religious.[3] He also makes extensive references to art and architecture as a means of showing how these movements reflected changing patterns of thought through time. Schaeffer’s central premise is: when we base society on the Bible, on the infinite-personal God who is there and has spoken,[4] this provides an absolute by which we can conduct our lives and by which we can judge society.  Here are some posts I have done on this series: Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 “The Age of Fragmentation”, episode 7 “The Age of Non-Reason” , episode 6 “The Scientific Age” ,  episode 5 “The Revolutionary Age” , episode 4 “The Reformation”,  episode 3 “The Renaissance”, episode 2 “The Middle Ages,”, and  episode 1 “The Roman Age,” .

In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented  against abortion (Episode 1),  infanticide (Episode 2),   euthanasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close look at the truth claims of the Bible.

Francis Schaeffer

Crash course on existentialism with Sartre

A bible-study companion of mine recently sent me Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism”. Here’s my response:

Thanks for sending that over! I must admit I haven’t read much of Sartre, so the lecture you sent helped remedy that.

I have a hard time differentiating existentialism from hedonism, something Sartre seems to acknowledge at least by accident when he talks about how existentialism got an early reputation for exalting man’s baser actions.

I suppose if we are to consider existence to come before essence then it logically follows that whatever I experience (ie. my present state of existence) should be considered of greater value than what I know (ie. knowledge of a transcendent essence). And if we are to begin with the subjective then it stands to reason that we can never attain knowledge of the divine. This struggle of where to begin epistemologically was also wrestled with by Plato and Aristotle (succinctly captured in this piece of art which depicts Plato’s notion of idealism which is the polar opposite of what Sartre is arguing for) and was also eloquently expressed by Francis Schaeffer (notably in his “Modern Man & Epistemology” lecture).

The third objection, stated by saying, “You take with one hand what you give with the other,” means, at bottom, “your values are not serious, since you choose them yourselves.” To that I can only say that I am very sorry that it should be so; but if I have excluded God the Father, there must be somebody to invent values.

One of the most instrumental Christian philosophers who paved the way for this kind of thinking, at least in the Church, was Friedrich Schleiermacher who argued that the primary way we know God is through our emotions and not through revelation/reason.

Its interesting how Sartre calls for men to be stewards of the emerging essence of mankind at the same time he claims that there is no ideal essence we are obliged to grow towards. I would agree with his notion that we should act as if all of mankind is defined by our actions, but that only makes sense if there is an objective and external observer whose favor or disapproval mattered. Sartre borrows much from the Christianity he misrepresents (ie. that Christian teaching is determined by the subjective whims of priests) and loathes. In fact, his a priori assumption that moral ideals would remain unchanged if we were to find that God doesn’t exist stands in direct opposition to his admission that Dostoevsky’s notion that “without God all things are permissible”. And he further contradicts himself when he talks about an ideal form of morality whose particulars are subject to change!

I understand why he claims that existentialism is a form of humanism, mostly because it puts man in the center of the universe. But like all other humanistic variants, it suffers from the same frailties that all men do. Namely our lack of omniscience and immortality, both of which it seems Sartre struggles with mightily to no avail.

Thanks again for the paper. Here are some movies on existentialism in case you’re interested to see what Hollywood does with this philosophy. There are a lot of big name actors in these movies which leads me to believe that existentialism is held in high esteem by much of Hollywood.

  • eXistenZ – The director required the cast to read Sartre and other existential philosophers in preparation for the movie
  • I heart Huckabees – Plot centers around a team of existential detectives

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Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part U “Do men have a say in the abortion debate?” (includes the film SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS and editorial cartoon)

May 14, 2013 – 1:08 am

I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control  and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline Republican.

On 3-5-13 on the Arkansas Times Blog Vanessa posted:

LOL Saline. Other than Roe, everyone else mentioned in your little rant [is a male].

One can be pro life and still want abortion to be legal. I know that concept confuses you. It’s not about selfishness, either.

[As a woman I can conceive and] you, Saline, cannot conceive.

In other words: You don’t get it. You never will. It’s not that you cannot possible ‘get it’ though you will never have a womb, because dbi gets it and… there is a time for all things. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. Ecclesiastes is still part of the bible, isn’t it, Saline?

Until you and your ilk start working to improve the lives of babies after they are born and even if you’re not gonna promote birth control and it’s use at least get out of the way so that it’s easily available, then it’s not about life with y’all, it’s about control.

Even Texas is coming around. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/us/texas…

The person going by the username “DeathByInches” noted:

I agree [males] need to keep their lips off abortion discussions. I can attest that all the millions of abortions that occurred since I was 20 didn’t cause me any pain in the slightest. I didn’t feel the slightest of pricks.

Mother T was indeed a woman, but if we’re going to believe all the gobblledygook she was never pronged nor gave birth nor had an abortion, so her word doesn’t really count…

There are some threads we shouldn’t pull at. Abortion is one of them. If you don’t like abortion don’t have one.

The outlier added:

Beautifully said, Vanessa….A fetus is not a human being. Abortion is not a slippery slope to infanticide and euthanasia….SalineSolution/Everette, you refused to answer my question. Figures! It has nothing to do with pregnancy, but the rights of living sperm and eggs. Or are YOU a supporter of genocide?

DeathByInches hit the nail squarely on the head:

1) If you don’t support abortion, don’t get one.

2) If you’re male, quit thinking you have any right to tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her body (actually, that advice applies to women controlling other women too).

I’ll add one more: if you’re a male who thinks you have a right to tell any woman what she can or cannot do with her own body, then that means women also have the right to tell you what you can and cannot do with your body…

Quit being such a slave re controlling other people’s lives, SalineSolution/Everette. We don’t need you playing god (small ‘g’).

I responded:

Vanessa I started out with this quote from a lady:
“It is a great poverty to kill an unborn child so you may live as you wish.” ~ Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India
_________
This issue of abortion is critical. According to Francis Schaeffer, ‘Of all the subjects relating to the erosion of the sanctity of human life, abortion is the keystone. It is the first and crucial issue that has been overwhelming in changing attitudes toward the value on life in general.’
‘If, in this last part of the twentieth century, the Christian community does not take a prolonged and vocal stand for the dignity of the individual each person’s right to life – for the right of each individual to be treated as created in the image of God – we feel that as Christians we have failed the greatest moral test to be put before us in this century.

‘Future generations will look back, and many will either scoff or believe in Christ on the basis of whether we Christians of today took a sacrificial stand in our various walks of life on these overwhelmingly important issues. If we do not take a stand here and now, we certainly cannot lay any claim to being the salt of the earth in our generation. We are neither preserving moral values and the dignity of the individual nor showing compassion for our fellow human beings.’
_________
I am so proud of the Catholics that I see in West Little Rock silently standing there with their pro-life signs for 40 days in a row leading up to March 31st. They are real heroes to me.

_________

Vanessa replied:

You’re right Saline. My bad. You did mention Mother Teresa. But I fail to see how that changes anything else I said. Women don’t get pregnant by themselves. Not even Mary did that. You want to decrease the number of abortions, then get men to accept responsibility for their sperm. There is a [male] behind *every* abortions, Saline. Didja ever stop to contemplate that reality?

_____

I also added:

Vanessa you and DBI want me to stop quoting men so I will give in this time for this next post. Here is the testimony of a nurse who helped on three abortions in one day and it changed her life dramatically.

In September, 1993, Brenda Pratt Shafer, a registered nurse with eleven years of experience, was assigned by her nursing agency to an abortion clinic in Ohio. Because of her “strong pro-choice” views, Nurse Shafer did not think this assignment would be a problem. This is her story.

I was present for three of these partial-birth procedures. It is the first one that I will describe to you in detail.

The mother was 6 months pregnant, 26½ weeks. A doctor told her that the baby had Down Syndrome, and she had to have an abortion. She decided to have this abortion. She came in the first 2 days to have the laminaria inserted and changed [to dilate the cervix], and she cried the whole time she was there. On the third day, she came in to have the partial-birth abortion procedure.

The doctor brought the ultrasound in and hooked it up so that he could see the baby. On the ultrasound screen, I could see the heartbeat. As the doctor watched the baby on the ultrasound screen, the baby’s heartbeat was clearly visible on the ultrasound screen.

The doctor went in with forceps and grabbed the baby’s legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby’s body and the arms — everything but the head. The doctor kept the head right inside the uterus.

The baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall.

The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby went completely limp. I was really completely unprepared for what I was seeing. I almost threw up as I watched the doctor doing these things.

Next, the doctor delivered the baby’s head. He cut the umbilical cord and delivered the placenta. He threw the baby in a pan, along with the placenta and the instruments he had just used. I saw the baby move in the pan. I asked another nurse, and she said it was just reflexes.

I have been a nurse for a long time, and I have seen a lot of death — people maimed in auto accidents, gunshot wounds, you name it. I have seen surgical procedures of every sort. But in all my professional years, I had never witnessed anything like this.

The woman wanted to see her baby, so they cleaned up the baby and put it in a blanket and handed it to her. She cried the whole time. She kept saying, “I am so sorry, please forgive me.” I was crying, too. I couldn’t take it. That baby boy had the most perfect, angelic face I think I have ever seen in my life.

I was present in the room during two more such procedures that day, but I was really in shock. I tried to pretend I was somewhere else, to not think about what was happening. I just couldn’t wait to get out of there. After I left that day, I never went back. The last two procedures, by the way, involved healthy mothers with healthy babies.

I was very much affected by what I saw. For a long time –and sometimes still — I had nightmares about what I saw that day.

I wish I hadn’t seen what I saw. But I did see it, and I will never be able to forget it. That baby boy was only inches, seconds, away from being entirely born, when he was killed. What I saw done to that little boy, and to those other babies, should not be allowed in this country.

As told to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, November 17, 1995, and the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, March 21, 1996.

__________

The discussion of abortion with many abortion advocates many times gets back to them claiming that as women no one can tell them what to do with their body. This editorial cartoon takes a look at this issue:

I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video below. It is very valuable information for Christians to have.  Actually I have included a video below that includes comments from him on this subject.

In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented  against abortion (Episode 1),  infanticide (Episode 2),   euthenasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close look at the truth claims of the Bible.

Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith pictured below.

Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” (Episode 2) SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS

Published on Oct 6, 2012 by

Why not engage the intellectuals of our day with the Bible? No one did it better than Francis Schaeffer.

Compassionate Engagement, Part 6: Schaeffer’s Enduring Influence

By Derek Brown on January 13, 2012

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5

Francis Schaeffer’s enduring influence upon evangelicals and evangelicalism cannot be overlooked.  In great measure, Francis Schaeffer taught evangelicals the value of intellectual engagement.  While in Europe, Schaeffer began to see the fault of fundamentalism lying primarily in its strident separatism.  As he would interact with young unbelievers who were persuaded by nihilism, atheism, and existentialism, Schaeffer learned that merely attacking liberalism and other evangelicals was less than profitable.  He needed to provide a positive response to modern philosophies and thoughtfully interact with opposing ideas on the level of world-view so unbelievers could see the incoherence of their positions and subsequently embrace the truth of Christianity.

Schaeffer’s desire to demonstrate the reasonableness of Christianity to unbelievers led him to begin to think more and more about how world-views had played a significant role in the formation of Western thought and culture.  As such, Schaeffer sought to engage with and think critically about past and present culture; not for its own sake, but so he might listen to the voice of those who were drowning in meaninglessness because they had embraced a world-view that erased the existence of a personal God—a world-view that inevitably led to the loss of a sense of humanness and overall purpose.

Schaeffer’s endeavor to wrestle with ancient and contemporary culture, especially in the realm of ideas and world-view, would have a tremendous influence on how Christians thought about and interacted with culture.  Ronald Nash summarizes his impact in this area well when he writes,

Francis Schaeffer was the instrument through whom hundreds of thousands of people became conscious of [the] intellectual dimension of the Christian faith, of the importance of philosophy, of the significance of world views and their presuppositions, of the message that ideas have consequences (Parkhurst, 69).

Among these hundreds of thousands to be profoundly influenced by Schaeffer would belong Christian apologists, philosophers and authors.  Nancy Pearcy, popular editor and author, tells of her trip to L’Abri and how she was immediately intrigued by Christians who were engaged with the intellectual and cultural world.  As she read works by Christian apologists and interacted with Schaeffer and others at L’Abri, Pearcy interacted with many good and sufficient arguments that did much to challenge her unbelief (Nancy Pearcy, Total Truth, 55).  Pearcy would eventually embrace Jesus Christ and a biblical world-view.

Pearcy also notes how Schaeffer provided her and other Christians with the apparatus with which to properly enjoy and accurately evaluate culture.  She writes,

There is no need to avoid the secular world and hide out behind the walls of an evangelical subculture; instead, Christians can appreciate works of art and culture as products of human creativity expressing the image of God.  On the other hand, there is no danger of being naïve or uncritical about false and dangerous messages embedded in secular culture, because a worldview gives the conceptual tools needed to analyze and critique them (Pearcy, 56).

Pearcy here testifies to what Barry Hankins believes was Schaeffer’s “signal achievement and most lasting influence;” namely, the “important task of world-view formation” (Hankins, 227).

On the other hand, we would be remiss if we did not reflect here on what motivated Schaeffer in his whole enterprise.  It was not merely an interest in ideas; it was love for people.  Bryan Follis guards us from turning Francis Schaeffer into a stuffy, intellectually smug apologist when he writes, “To understand Schaeffer, we need to understand the love he had for the individual person” (Follis, Truth with Love, 53).  Love for others appeared to free Schaeffer to engage the surrounding culture for the sake of people’s good and salvation.  As Schaeffer traveled to America and shared his message with young evangelicals, his point was unmistakable in this regard.  Barry Hankins notes,

…[Schaeffer’s] message to American evangelical college students was that to be effective witnesses they would have to move beyond fundamentalist separation from secular ideas and beyond mere denunciation of liberals.  Instead, evangelicals needed to take their ideas seriously and to understand and engage their culture (Hankins, 233).

Schaeffer would not merely seek to understand and exhibit the impotence of unbiblical world-views; he would sympathize with and weep over those who struggled desperately with the essential questions of life—even if their answers came in the form of unbelieving, incoherent philosophy, art, and poetry—and he encouraged following generations of evangelicals to do the same.

___________

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

Article on Francis Schaeffer by Fred Sanders

May 14, 2013 – 12:18 am

Article on Francis Schaeffer by Fred Sanders

Episode 8: The Age Of Fragmentation

Published on Jul 24, 2012

Dr. Schaeffer’s sweeping epic on the rise and decline of Western thought and Culture

_______________________

I love the works of Francis Schaeffer and I have been on the internet reading several blogs that talk about Schaeffer’s work and the work below   by Fred Sanders was really helpful. Schaeffer’s film series “How should we then live?  Wikipedia notes, “According to Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live traces Western history from Ancient Rome until the time of writing (1976) along three lines: the philosophic, scientific, and religious.[3] He also makes extensive references to art and architecture as a means of showing how these movements reflected changing patterns of thought through time. Schaeffer’s central premise is: when we base society on the Bible, on the infinite-personal God who is there and has spoken,[4] this provides an absolute by which we can conduct our lives and by which we can judge society.  Here are some posts I have done on this series: Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 “The Age of Fragmentation”, episode 7 “The Age of Non-Reason” , episode 6 “The Scientific Age” ,  episode 5 “The Revolutionary Age” , episode 4 “The Reformation”,  episode 3 “The Renaissance”, episode 2 “The Middle Ages,”, and  episode 1 “The Roman Age,” .

In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented  against abortion (Episode 1),  infanticide (Episode 2),   euthanasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close look at the truth claims of the Bible.

Francis Schaeffer

Today is Francis Schaeffer’s Birthday

January 30, 2009 By

Francis Schaeffer Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984) has been gone for a quarter of a century now, and responsible evaluation of his impact on Christian culture is just getting underway. Two major biographies have been published recently: Barry Hankins’ Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America (Eerdmans, 2009) and Colin Duriez’s Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life (Crossway, 2008).

Perhaps the evangelical culture at large has passed through some of the same stages I passed through in appreciating Schaeffer. When a friend gave me my first Francis Schaeffer book (How Should We Then Live), it knocked my socks off so far that I had to read it barefoot. This author exuded passion and confidence as he opined about Michelangelo, John Cage, Thomas Aquinas, and the Beatles. He was full of wonder about all these things that I had never heard a Christian critic talking about, and he read the world as if every cultural artifact were a clue that led inexorably to solving his big presuppositional apologetic crime of the century. Here was a renaissance man who could explain Renaissance Man.

Then as I studied more of these things myself, I began to see how tendentious many of Schaeffer’s interpretations were. Whereas at first I had been forced to take his word for it, as I became more familiar with art and philosophy and culture, I was able to render independent judgments on my own, and compare them to his. He hadn’t quite grasped what Aquinas was up to, had he? And the way he described Kant… peculiar. Was cubism really all about the dissolving of form? Had he actually read a single page of Karl Barth, or did he just dismiss him unread? And so on. I think my first judgments about all those things had been pretty facile, and as I refined and developed my understanding, I imputed my facile judgments to Schaeffer’s bold simplifications and generalizations, and told myself I had outgrown Francis Schaeffer.

But when I finally pulled the dusty volumes of Schaeffer’s books back down from the shelf, I had to admit this was still powerful stuff. Anybody who moved as nimbly as Schaeffer over so much territory was bound to work by intuition and rough-and-ready summary. For what it is, this is great stuff. He was fundamentally right about existentialism in its many guises, wasn’t he? And that actually did explain a lot of modern art and music –not all of it, but a lot. Time after time, Schaeffer scored direct hits and said what mattered most for his audience:

It is not more spiritual to believe without asking questions. It is not more biblical. It is less biblical and eventually it will be less spiritual, because the whole man will not be involved… It must be the whole man who comes to understand that the gospel is truth and believes because he is convinced on the basis of good and sufficient reason that it is truth.

I think Schaeffer’s published work continues to speak to new audiences today, and the many students whose lives were changed by personal interaction with him continue to be important influences in the world.

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“Schaeffer Sundays” Francis Schaeffer’s own words concerning where the Bible-believing Christians been the last few decades

Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book  really helped develop my political views […]

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part E “Moral absolutes and abortion” Francis Schaeffer Quotes part 5(includes the film SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS) (editorial cartoon)

I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control  and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]

“Schaeffer Sundays” Francis Schaeffer’s own words concerning religious liberals and humanists

Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 5) TRUTH AND HISTORY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book  really helped develop my political views concerning abortion, […]

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

Congress needs to remove subsidies from the farm bill, not expand them

May 13, 2013 – 11:01 am

Congress needs to remove subsidies from the farm bill, not expand them

May 13, 2013 at 11:27 am

Design Pics / Dave Reede/Dave Reede/Newscom

Design Pics / Dave Reede/Dave Reede/Newscom

Slapping the word rural in front of a bunch of green subsidies does not mean they’re not subsidies. But that’s exactly what the Rural Energy Investment Act section of the Senate version of the farm bill legislation does.

The legislation includes direct handouts and loan guarantees for advanced biofuels and bio-refineries, renewable chemicals, and bio-based product manufacturers. It would also reauthorize the Rural Energy for America Program, which “provides grants for energy audits and renewable energy development assistance. It also provides funds to agricultural producers and rural small businesses to purchase and install renewable energy systems and make energy efficiency improvements.”

The Rural Energy Self-Sufficiency Program includes grants “to assess energy use in a rural community, evaluate ideas for reducing energy use, and develop and install integrated renewable energy systems.”

In other words, more wasteful green subsidies. These handouts come on top of a number of policies that already provide preferential treatment to biofuels and renewable energy—including the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which mandates the use of biofuels—and a number of targeted tax credits incentivizing production of renewable energy generation.

Businesses do not need public investment to improve efficiency and cut costs; they make those investments regularly with their own money. Integrating more renewable energy will make economic sense for rural communities when it’s not artificially driven by politicians.

The Rural Energy Investment Act section also includes a biodiesel fuel education program that would spend $1 million a year for “competitive grants to nonprofit organizations that educate governmental and private entities operating vehicle fleets, and educates the public about the benefits of biodiesel fuel use.”

Well, here’s a free education lesson: The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) biodiesel program is bad for both the economy and the environment. The EPA has acknowledged that its target of 1.28 billion gallons of commercial biodiesel for 2013 will increase soybean prices, which is good for soybean growers but bad for the rest of us.

For only 2013 and just for the biodiesel component of the RFS, net costs of the rule are projected to be between $263 million and $425 million.

The environmental benefit of more biodiesel production is nowhere to be found; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Sofie Miller, policy analyst in the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center, points out:

The EPA also estimates that this standard will cause up to $52 million in environmental costs from reductions in air quality, and will have modest but “directionally negative” effects on water quality, water use, wetlands, ecosystems, and wildlife habitats.

Also included in the bill are the Biomass Research and Development Initiative and the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP). The Department of Agriculture emphasizes that BCAP’s goals are to lower financial risk and solve the classic chicken-and-egg situation in which the government provides subsidies for commercial-scale production and consumption, because one won’t be successful without the other.

First, it is not the role of the government to lower financial risk. Markets take on risks all the time. Government involvement only privatizes the gains and socializes the losses. Second, good economic ideas overcome the chicken-and-egg situation all the time without government assistance. We have gas stations and gas-powered cars, cell phones and cell towers. No big government programs were necessary to make that happen.

Congress needs to remove subsidies from the farm bill, not expand them. Eliminating all of the programs in the Rural Energy Investment Act section is a good place to start.

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

David Climer: Titles can’t erase SEC football’s weaknesses

May 13, 2013 – 9:52 am

SEC has proved how good we are, but it doesn’t mean every team in the SEC could win a national title in 2013.

David Climer: Titles can’t erase SEC football’s weaknesses

Alabama players celebrates after their 32-28 win in the Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football game against Georgia, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hyosub Shin) MARIETTA DAILY OUT; GWINNETT DAILY POST OUT; LOCAL TV OUT; WXIA-TV OUT; WGCL-TV OUT

Alabama players celebrates after their 32-28 win in the Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football game against Georgia, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hyosub Shin) MARIETTA DAILY OUT; GWINNETT DAILY POST OUT; LOCAL TV OUT; WXIA-TV OUT; WGCL-TV OUT / AP

Written by
David Climer
The Tennessean
  • Filed Under

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Bob Stoops believes the dominance of SEC football is overstated.

He considers the SEC a top-heavy conference whose bottom half is nothing special.

He thinks the perception of total SEC superiority is due to “a lot of propaganda.”

Know what? The Oklahoma coach is right.

There, I said it. And I’m a charter member of the SEC propaganda machine of which Stoops spoke. Wonder when SEC Commissioner Mike Slive will revoke my hospitality room privileges?

Look, everyone fixates on the SEC’s extraordinary accomplishment of seven consecutive national championships and eight in the past 10 years. Often, that is used as a basis for the argument about utter superiority.

Yes, the best SEC teams are better than anyone else in the nation. The BCS bowl records don’t lie. Likewise, the best handful of teams in the SEC tend to be better than the top four or five in any other league on an annual basis.

But as you work your way down the standings, there is some pretty mediocre and even downright bad football being played in the SEC. In other words, that tier is just like the bottom tier in other BCS conferences.

And what about those eight national championships in the past 10 years? Those titles were won by four programs — Alabama (3), LSU (2), Florida (2) and Auburn (1). While that is impressive, it’s not like the crystal trophy is being handed around to everyone in the league.

They say a rising tide lifts all boats. Where perception is concerned, it’s the same with a rising Crimson Tide. When Alabama wins three out of four national titles, it elevates how SEC football as a whole is viewed. Every team in the conference gets a boost.

But reality is different from perception. Take last season, for example. Alabama repeated as national champion. Seven SEC teams were ranked in the AP’s final Top 25 poll, including five in the Top 10. After that, though, things got dicey.

Five SEC teams finished 2012 with losing records. The coaches at four of those schools were fired. Stoops’ brother, Mark, was a beneficiary of the turnover, landing at Kentucky. There, he will attempt to recapture the good old days of — get this — Rich Brooks.

And it cuts deeper. The cliché that any SEC team can beat any other SEC team on a given Saturday is largely a myth. It simply doesn’t happen.

In 2012, the top six teams in the SEC — Alabama, Texas A&M and LSU in the West, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina in the East — went a combined 30-0 against the bottom eight. A year earlier, the top six’s record against everybody else was 28-2.

If that doesn’t tell you there is a definite division of power in the conference, nothing will.

Cue Stoops, who told the Tulsa World: “So they’ve had the best team in college football. They haven’t had the whole conference. Because, again, half of ’em haven’t done much at all. I’m just asking you. You tell me.”

He’s right. Like everybody else, the SEC is a league of Haves and Have Nots.

Consider: Tennessee’s 7-6 record in 2009 is the Vols’ only winning season in the past five years. Auburn won the national title in 2010 but is a combined 9-23 in conference games in the two years before and the two years after that championship season, which makes a case for Cam Newton as the greatest player in SEC history.

And with all due respect to the great job James Franklin is doing at Vanderbilt, let’s not pretend the Commodores have become a major player on the national scene just yet. The 9-4 record last season was nice, but the best team Vanderbilt beat was North Carolina State — a team Tennessee defeated in the season opener. The Commodores’ three conference losses were by a combined 96-33.

But what about the 2013 NFL Draft, you say. The SEC had 63 players selected, more than double any other conference. Doesn’t that prove the SEC’s total superiority?

No. It proves the total superiority of the SEC’s superior teams.

If you examine the numbers, you again see the top-heavy nature of the league. Five SEC programs accounted for 41 of those draftees. The other nine schools combined to produce 22 draft choices.

In sum, the SEC is a great football conference, but that doesn’t mean everybody in the conference is great.

David Climer’s columns appear on Friday, Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. Contact him at 615-259-8020 or dclimer@tennessean.com.

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Tour of SEC Football Sept 22, 2012 (Lester McClain honored)

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SEC football as strong as ever

Arkansas defensive tackle Jared Green (57) and linebackers Alonzo Highsmith (45), and Tenarius Wright (43) attempt to tackle Alabama running back Eddie Lacy (42) as offensive lineman Barrett Jones (75) looks on during second quarter action of an NCAA college football game in Fayetteville, Ark., Saturday, Sept. 15, 2012. (AP Photo/David Quinn) ___________ When you […]

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

John Lennon

May 13, 2013 – 6:43 am

John Lennon, Rock Culture, and Eternity

It may have been “twenty years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play,” as the Beatles sang about in their 1967 album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” but I in fact wish to go back one more decade. Old folks like me will well know what I am talking about here.

Exactly thirty years ago today, ex-Beatle John Lennon was shot to death outside of his New York apartment. It is always a great tragedy when anyone’s life is cut short prematurely. Undoubtedly his worldwide legion of fans will be especially saddened today.

He of course is not the only rock celebrity to die young. On occasion I give a talk on popular music. I point out just how many of these lives have been cut short. Indeed, it is incredible just how many rock stars and pop stars have died young. Here are just a few of the more well known cases:

Brian Jones (Rolling Stones), died July 1969, age 27, drug related
Jimi Hendrix, died September 1970, age 27, drug overdose
Jim Morrison (Doors), died July 1971, age 27, drug overdose
Janis Joplin, died October 1970, age 27, drug overdose
Duane Allman (Allman Brothers Band), died October 1971, age 25, motorcycle accident
Elvis Presley, died August 1977, age 42, drug related
Bon Scott (AC/DC), died February 1980, age 33, alcohol related
Stevie Ray Vaughan, died August 1990, age 35, helicopter crash, but drug and alcohol problems
Freddy Mercury (Queen), died November 1991, age 45, AIDS related
Kurt Cobain (Nirvana), died April 1994, age 27, suicide
Michael Hutchence (INXS), died November 1997, aged 37, drug and alcohol related suicide
Michael Jackson, died June 2009, age 50, drug related

There are in fact many hundreds of other such examples. One can ask just what it is about the rock scene that results in so many premature deaths. But let me get back to John Lennon. He was clearly a colourful figure, as well as part of one of the great pop song-writing teams of all time (Lennon and McCartney).

He certainly caused major waves back in 1966 when he said in an interview, “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink … We’re more popular than Jesus now – I don’t know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity.” Well, he did not quite get that right. Christianity is still here, while he and the Beatles are not.

It seems that he never did come to know the one true God who created him, and the Redeemer who died to save him. Indeed, he is also noted for his rather silly atheist anthem, “Imagine”.

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

2008 article on Woody Allen on the meaning of life

May 13, 2013 – 6:40 am

Ecclesiastes 8-10 | Still Searching After All These Years

Published on Oct 9, 2012

Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 7, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider

_______________________

Ecclesiastes 11-12 | Solomon Finds His Way

Published on Oct 30, 2012

Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 28, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider

____________________

I have spent alot of time talking about Woody Allen films on this blog and looking at his worldview. He has a hopeless, meaningless, nihilistic worldview that believes we are going to turn to dust and there is no afterlife. Even though he has this view he has taken the opportunity to look at the weaknesses of his own secular view. I salute him for doing that. That is why I have returned to his work over and over and presented my own Christian worldview as an alternative. Take a moment and read again a good article on Woody Allen below. There are some links below to some other posts about him.

________

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Woody Allen and the Meaning of Life

I have a strange sort of appreciation for Woody Allen, though I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a single one of his many films. My entire sympathy for Allen rests in the interviews and comments that I read about him from time to time. Some day, I may have a Woody Allen film fest to get to know him a little better.Today I read another interview/excerpt about Woody Allen, and it did a good job of expressing his hopeless world view. Here is a quote for you to get the feel of his philosophy, “The fact that there is no god and that we’re alone in the universe makes it more important than ever to act decently, but people don’t, very frequently.” Allen believes that there is no God at all, and yet he persistently and stubbornly insists that people ought to “act decently.” The natural response to that is, “Why, Woody, should we act decently then?” It seems that it is precisely this sort of question that has driven his most recent films.His latest film, “Cassandra’s Dream,” demonstrates Allen’s struggle with this very question. He says, “I’ve always felt that the worst kind of crimes and sometimes not the worst crimes often go unpunished. Everyday, from genocide in the political spectrum to street crime, people do terrible things and get away with it.” If there is no God, then Allen is precisely right, which again begs the question of why people ought to “act decently.” Allen has no good answer for that.

Eventually, this sort of reasoning must lead one to ponder why to live at all, which is another thing that Allen ponders. What, exactly, is the point of life. Here’s Allen again, “I feel the trick is to try and find, not meaning, because there is no meaning, but to try and find some enjoyment in that context and know that it’s meaningless, short, nasty, brutal, and still, you know, find a modicum of enjoyment, get what you can get out of it, which is not a lot.” Can you see the connection between believing that there is no God to the inevitable conclusion that there is no meaning to life? Once God is erased from the equation, one is left with a meaningless existence in which the best one can hope for is to scratch a “modicum of enjoyment” out of life.

This leads to the final Allen quote in the article. His philosophy of life eventually cause people to ask him the ultimate question. Here he answers in his own words, “People say, `Well, why go on at all?’ Camus’ question, why choose life? And the only answer I can ever give to that is we seem to be hard-wired to. The brain asks the questions, but the blood says live. So if a guy comes in here with a gun, you do everything you can to get it away from him. You do whatever you can to live. You bargain, you lie, you jump on top of him.

“You’re hard-wired for self-preservation, but when you think about it cerebrally, why, to what end, what am I savoring here? And you can’t really think of a good answer, so you give up and say, `I can’t think of an answer, but my body fights to live, so I’m not going to resist that. I’m going to go along and trust the impulse toward life.”

I find Woody Allen interesting because his reasoning is sound. He is right to say that if there is no God, then art and life and love and everything here is meaningless. I like reading about him because he is clearly uncomfortable, or so it seems, with this dismal outlook. His philosophy forces him to admit that horrible crimes will ultimately go unpunished, and that truly, there is no reason to go on living because life is both meaningless and without purpose. In his films, he struggles with this Godless reality. I grieve for him and for others like him who can have no hope for any meaning beyond fleeting, worldly pleasures.

Perhaps you wonder why I find this interesting at all and not simply morbid. I find it interesting because Woody Allen displays the inherent hopelessness of a godless universe and the bleak truth that without God, there truly is no purpose in the anything. That explanation will never satisfy one made in the image of God. Fallen as we are, we still long for something more than that. I hope that Woody Allen can find mercy in Jesus Christ, in whom we find purpose and justice and meaning for life.

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Here is a complete list of all the posts I did on the film “Midnight in Paris”

What can we learn from Woody Allen Films?, August 1, 2011 – 6:30 am

Movie Review of “Midnight in Paris” lastest movie by Woody Allen, July 30, 2011 – 6:52 am

Leo Stein and sister Gertrude Stein’s salon is in the Woody Allen film “Midnight in Paris”, July 28, 2011 – 6:22 am

Great review on Midnight in Paris with talk about artists being disatisfied, July 27, 2011 – 6:20 am

Critical review of Woody Allen’s latest movie “Midnight in Paris”, July 24, 2011 – 5:56 am

Not everyone liked “Midnight in Paris”, July 22, 2011 – 5:38 am

“Midnight in Paris” one of Woody Allen’s biggest movie hits in recent years, July 18, 2011 – 6:00 am

(Part 32, Jean-Paul Sartre)July 10, 2011 – 5:53 am

 (Part 29, Pablo Picasso) July 7, 2011 – 4:33 am

(Part 28,Van Gogh) July 6, 2011 – 4:03 am

(Part 27, Man Ray) July 5, 2011 – 4:49 am

(Part 26,James Joyce) July 4, 2011 – 5:55 am

(Part 25, T.S.Elliot) July 3, 2011 – 4:46 am

(Part 24, Djuna Barnes) July 2, 2011 – 7:28 am

(Part 23,Adriana, fictional mistress of Picasso) July 1, 2011 – 12:28 am

(Part 22, Silvia Beach and the Shakespeare and Company Bookstore) June 30, 2011 – 12:58 am

(Part 21,Versailles and the French Revolution) June 29, 2011 – 5:34 am

(Part 16, Josephine Baker) June 24, 2011 – 5:18 am

(Part 15, Luis Bunuel) June 23, 2011 – 5:37 am

“Woody Wednesday” The heart wants what it wants”jh67

I read this on http://www.crosswalk.com which is one of my favorite websites. Life Lessons from Woody Allen Stephen McGarvey I confess I am a huge film buff. But I’ve never really been a Woody Allen fan, even though most film critics consider him to be one of the most gifted and influential filmmakers of our […]

“Music Monday”:Coldplay’s best songs of all time (Part 6)

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“Woody Wednesday” Allen once wrote these words: “Do you realize what a thread were all hanging by? Can you understand how meaningless everything is? Everything. I gotta get some answers.” jh31

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“Music Monday”:Coldplay’s best songs of all time (Part 5)

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Steve Jobs’ view of death and what the Bible has to say about it jh55

(If you want to check out other posts I have done about about Steve Jobs:Some say Steve Jobs was an atheist , Steve Jobs and Adoption , What is the eternal impact of Steve Jobs’ life? ,Steve Jobs versus President Obama: Who created more jobs? ,Steve Jobs’ view of death and what the Bible has to say about it ,8 things you might not know about Steve Jobs ,Steve […]

“Woody Wednesday” A review of some of the past Allen films jh32

I am a big Woody Allen fan. Not all his films can be recommended but he does look at some great issues and he causes the viewer to ask the right questions. My favorite is “Crimes and Misdemeanors” but the recent film “Midnight in Paris” was excellent too. Looking at the (sometimes skewed) morality of […]

Good without God?

(The signs are up on the buses in Little Rock now and the leader of the movement to put them up said on the radio today that he does not anticipate any physical actions against the signs by Christians. He noted that the Christians that he knows would never stoop to that level.) Debate: Christianity […]

“Music Monday”:Coldplay’s best songs of all time (Part 4)

Dave Hogan/ Getty Images This is “Music Monday” and I always look at a band with some of their best music. I am currently looking at Coldplay’s best songs. Here are a few followed by another person’s preference: For the 17th best Coldplay song of all-time, Hunter picks “42.” He notes, “You thought you might […]

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