My name is Everette Hatcher III. I am a businessman in Little Rock and have been living in Bryant since 1993. My wife Jill and I have four kids (Rett 24, Hunter 22, Murphey 16, and Wilson 14).
Nikole Flax, the IRS official in charge of a centralized office for 87,000 new agents, was part of the 2013 scandal exposing IRS targeting of conservative organizations. Pictured: Lois Lerner, then director of IRS’ exempt organizations unit, is sworn in May 22, 2013, before a House committee investigating the scandal. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
House Republicans say they will keep a “watchful eye” on the Internal Revenue Service official tapped to run the centralized office housing 87,000 incoming new agents because she has ties to the IRS’ targeting of tea party groups during the Obama administration.
The Daily Signal first reported that IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig had appointed Nikole Flax, commissioner in charge of the IRS’ Large Business & International Division, to lead the establishment of the agency’s centralized office.
In 2014, Flax was among seven IRS employeeswho said their computers had crashed, making it impossible for them to provide information sought by the House Ways and Means Committee in investigating the agency’s targeting of tea party and other conservative groups.
Flax made 31 visits to the Obama White House from July 2010 through May 2013.
“Every American should be concerned that a key player in the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups and ensuing cover-up has been tapped to oversee the implementation of Democrats’ tax and spending bill,” Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., ranking member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, told The Daily Signal.
Lois Lerner Connection
In an email sent May 8, 2013, Lois Lerner, head of the IRS’ tax-exempt organizations unit when the scandal erupted, told Flax that she received a call about working with the Justice Department to pursue certain political organizations that “lied” on IRS forms.
Lerner was the central figure of the Obama administration’s IRS targeting scandal. She said her computer also crashed.
Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself in testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. After being placed on paid administrative leave, she retired later in 2013.
The IRS didn’t respond directly to the concerns raised by Flax’s background. Instead, the agency referred The Daily Signal to Rettig’s memo to staff announcing that Flax would run a new “centralized office” to implement elements of the tax and spending legislation that Democrats dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act. The package, signed into law by President Joe Biden, provides $80 billion for the IRS to add almost 87,000 new agents.
Despite the computer crash during the congressional investigation of IRS targeting, Rettig said that Flax would work with Congress and others in her new role leading the effort.
“Nikole has an extensive background in a variety of roles across the IRS since 2008,” Rettig’s memo says, adding: “Her wide range of experience will serve her well as she works with internal and external stakeholders, including Treasury, Congress, IRS employees and taxpayers.”
Rettig’s memo to IRS staffers about the new office also quotes Flax.
“This is a historic time for the IRS, and we are working to move quickly to begin work on the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law earlier this week,” Flax is quoted as saying. “This is an exciting opportunity, and we will be moving quickly with our work.”
Flax became director of the IRS Large Business & International Division in 2021. Previously, she had been deputy commissioner for the division since 2017.
Flax also is a former chief of staff to IRS Commissioner Steve Miller and was assistant deputy IRS commissioner for services and enforcement.
Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee will monitor the IRS’ actions, Comer said.
“This entrenched bureaucrat will oversee the establishment of a new, centralized IRS office and the hiring of up to 87,000 IRS agents, which raises concerns that the Swamp could weaponize new resources to target and harass Americans,” Comer said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal.
“Oversight Committee Republicans will keep a watchful eye on this office. If there is a whiff of government abuse, we will work to hold bad actors accountable,” he said.
‘Frequent Visitor to White House’
In 2014, then-House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., accused the IRS of “lying” by attempting to hide two years of emails from Lerner and other officials.
“Despite their attempt to bury the missing Lerner emails on page 15 of a 27-page letter that arrived late Friday, we now know documents from other central figures, like Nikole Flax, are missing,” Camp said in a joint statement with Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., then-chairman of the Ways and Means oversight subcommittee.
The two Republican lawmakers added:
The fact that Ms. Flax was a frequent visitor to the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building only raises more questions. Who was she visiting at the White House and what were they talking about? Was she updating the White House on the targeting or was she getting orders?
These are answers we don’t yet have, because—surprise, surprise—a few computers crashed. Plot lines in Hollywood are more believable than what we are getting from this White House and the IRS.
When testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee in 2014, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen defended Flax, saying she had two IRS computers and that her IRS emails should be intact.
“Those press releases with regard to Nicole Flax were inaccurate and misleading and it demonstrates why we’ll provide this committee a full report … when it is completed,” Koskinen toldthe committee. “We are not going to dribble out the information and have it played out in the press.”
A string of audits and congressional investigations found that the IRS improperly targeted tea party and other conservative groups during the 2010 and 2012 election cycles by holding up their applications for tax-exempt status.
Chronology of IRS Scandal
In May 2013, the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration released a report asserting that in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles, the IRS “used inappropriate criteria that identified tea party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their policy positions.”
In 2015, the Senate Finance Committee released its findings that Lerner’s personal and political views played a role. The report said:
Lerner orchestrated a process that subjected these applicants to multiple levels of review by numerous components within the IRS, thereby ensuring that they would suffer long delays and be required to answer burdensome and unnecessary questions.
Another report, from the Government Accountability Office in 2016, stated that the IRS still might be targeting some nonprofits unfairly “based on an organization’s religious, educational, political, or other views.”
Nevertheless, Justice Department prosecutor Barbara Bosserman—who had donated a total of $6,750 to Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns and the Democratic National Committee from 2004 to 2012—declined to press charges after investigating the matter.
The IRS ultimately settled lawsuits with several tea party and other conservative groups in 2017 and 2018.
In 2016, Congress approved a provision to prevent the IRS from doing anything to target organizations or groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited rema
Open letter to President Obama (Part 644)
(Emailed to White House on 6-10-13.)
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
If you take a group of Democrats who are also unionized government employees, and put them in charge of policing political speech, it doesn’t matter how professional and well-intentioned they are. The result will be much like the debacle in the Cincinnati office of the IRS. …there’s no reason to even posit evil intent by the IRS officials who formulated, approved or executed the inappropriate guidelines for picking groups to scrutinize most closely. …The public servants figuring out which groups qualified for 501(c)4 “social welfare” non-profit status were mostly Democrats surrounded by mostly Democrats. …In the 2012 election, every donation traceable to this office went to President Obama or liberal Sen. Sherrod Brown. This is an environment where even those trying to be fair could develop a disproportionate distrust of the Tea Party. One IRS worker — a member of NTEU and contributor to its PAC, which gives 96 percent of its money to Democratic candidates — explained it this way: “The reason NTEU mostly supports Democratic candidates for office is because Democratic candidates are mostly more supportive of civil servants/government employees.”
Tim concludes with a wise observation.
As long as we have a civil service workforce that leans Left, and as long as we have an income tax system that requires the IRS to police political speech, conservative groups can always expect special IRS scrutiny.
The real issue is the expansive, expensive bureaucratic state and its inherent threat to any system of limited government, rule of law, and individual liberty. …the broader the government’s authority, the greater its need for revenue, the wider its enforcement power, the more expansive the bureaucracy’s discretion, the increasingly important the battle for political control, and the more bitter the partisan fight, the more likely government officials will abuse their positions, violate rules, laws, and Constitution, and sacrifice people’s liberties. The blame falls squarely on Congress, not the IRS.
…the denizens of Capitol Hill also have created a tax code marked by outrageous complexity, special interest electioneering, and systematic social engineering. Legislators have intentionally created avenues for tax avoidance to win votes, and then complained about widespread tax avoidance to win votes.
So what’s the answer?
The most obvious response to the scandal — beyond punishing anyone who violated the law — is tax reform. Implement a flat tax and you’d still have an IRS, but the income tax would be less complex, there would be fewer “preferences” for the agency to police, and rates would be lower, leaving taxpayers with less incentive for aggressive tax avoidance. …Failing to address the broader underlying factors also would merely set the stage for a repeat performance in some form a few years hence. …More fundamentally, government, and especially the national government, should do less. Efficient social engineering may be slightly better than inefficient social engineering, but no social engineering would be far better.
But here’s the challenge. We know the solution, but it will be almost impossible to implement good policy unless we figure out some way to restrain the spending side of the fiscal ledger.
___________________________
At the risk of over-simplifying, we will never get tax reform unless we figure out how to implement entitlement reform.
Here’s another Foden cartoon, which I like because it has the same theme asthis Jerry Holbert cartoon, showing big government as a destructive and malicious force.
_____________
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
We know the IRS commissioner wasn’t telling the truth in March 2012, when he testified: “There’s absolutely no targeting.”However, Lois Lerner knew different when she misled people with those words. Two important points made by Noonan in the Wall Street Journal in the article below: First, only conservative groups were targeted in this scandal by […]
Ohio Liberty Coalition versus the I.R.S. (Tom Zawistowski) Published on May 20, 2013 The Ohio Liberty Coalition was among tea party groups that received special scrutiny from the I.R.S. Tom Zawistowski says his story is not unique. He argues the kinds of questions the I.R.S. asked his group amounts to little more than “opposition research.” Video […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” (Episode 2) SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS 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 concerning […]
We got to lower the size of government so we don’t have these abuses like this in the IRS. Cartoonists v. the IRS May 23, 2013 by Dan Mitchell Call me perverse, but I’m enjoying this IRS scandal. It’s good to see them suffer a tiny fraction of the agony they impose on the American people. I’ve already […]
Dear Senator Pryor, Why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion). On my blog http://www.HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. However, […]
Is the irs out of control? Here is the link from cato: MAY 22, 2013 8:47AM Can You Vague That Up for Me? By TREVOR BURRUS SHARE As the IRS scandal thickens, targeted groups are coming out to describe their ordeals in dealing with that most-reviled of government agencies. The Ohio Liberty Coalition was one of […]
Get Ready to Be Reamed May 17, 2013 by Dan Mitchell With so many scandals percolating, there are lots of good cartoons being produced. But I think this Chip Bok gem deserves special praise. It manages to weave together both the costly Obamacare boondoggle with the reprehensible politicization of the IRS. So BOHICA, my friends. If […]
You want to talk about irony then look at President Obama’s speech a few days ago when he joked about a potential audit of Ohio St by the IRS then a few days later the IRS scandal breaks!!!! The I.R.S. Abusing Americans Is Nothing New Published on May 15, 2013 The I.R.S. targeting of tea party […]
Dear Senator Pryor, Why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion). On my blog http://www.HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. However, […]
We could put in a flat tax and it would enable us to cut billions out of the IRS budget!!!! May 14, 2013 2:34PM IRS Budget Soars By Chris Edwards Share The revelations of IRS officials targeting conservative and libertarian groups suggest that now is a good time for lawmakers to review a broad range […]
Imagine for a moment, something probably never done before, but imagine for just a second that you are Joe Biden. You have spent your entire life in politics. You’ve ascended to high office, but in fact, you have achieved very little. As political careers inevitably do, yours is ending in bitterness and failure. You sacrificed your entire life to personal ambition, but you have nothing to show for it. You have no close friends. Your family is in tatters….
Weeks from now, you will turn 80. This is the point in the journey where a decent man turns inward.
Old age is the pause that God gives us to reflect on what we’ve done and what we’ve left undone, and above all, to ponder where we might be going next. If you were Joe Biden, you would ponder that. How could you not? But Joe Biden is not doing that. In the final days of his 79th year, Joe Biden is not asking questions about the fate of his soul. He’s making pronouncements about yours, the soul of the nation, as he puts it. That’s the topic of his primetime speechtomorrow night. Don’t expect to hear anything transcendent as he speaks. We haven’t seen the transcript, but we can say with confidence that Biden will not say a word about the single greatest problem that our country faces, which is the utter lack of meaning in our national life.
What exactly do we believe as Americans? What’s the point of all of this? Fighting climate change? Yelling about diversity and equity and trans rights? It can’t be the point. Those are fads. They’re not ideals and if they’re all we have, we’re in trouble. There is a yawning void at the center of American identity. No wonder everybody’s gone crazy, but don’t expect Biden to address any of that tomorrow night. Biden is, above all, a partisan, a team player, right or wrong. So, naturally he will use this time to push for partisan advantage ahead of the coming midterm elections and that alone is not surprising.
U.S. President Joe Biden greets people on South Lawn after arriving on Marine One from a trip to Delaware at the White House in Washington, U.S., August 24, 2022. (REUTERS/Leah Millis)
That’s what most politicians would do, but Biden is different in this way. In his age, Biden has lost all sense of proportion and restraint. His fine motor skills are gone. He no longer persuades, he bludgeons. “What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of extreme MAGA philosophy,” he announced in a speech last week. “It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy. It’s like semi-fascism,” fascists. That’s what the other side is, says Joe Biden, an American president comparing tens of millions of his own people to the moral monsters we shot and bombed and later hung from the gallows in World War II.
The children and grandchildren of Americans who died fighting the Nazis are now themselves Nazis, says Joe Biden, because they vote Republican. It’s hard to believe that any U.S. president would say something like that, even in private, but Joe Biden just did and then a few hours later at a high school gym, he said it again.
BIDEN:And we’re not going to let anyone or anything tear America apart. I’ll close with this. We’re at a serious moment in our nation’s history. The MAGA Republicans don’t just threaten our personal rights and economic security. They’re a threat to our very democracy. We must be stronger, more determined and more committed to saving America than the MAGA Republicans are destroying America.
They’re destroying democracy, says the same politician who had the FBI raid the home of the man who is running against him in the next election. They’re destroying democracy by voting for the wrong people. They’re attempting self-government and that’s an attack on democracy. It was all so crazy and over-the-top, so extreme that you couldn’t believe the White House press office would even try to defend it, would have been better to announce that Biden must have had a stroke, apologize and then move on. Yet the White House seemed completely unashamed of what he said.
Biden’s history-making publicist, the single dumbest person ever to hold that job, explained that her boss had spoken intentionally and with precision. He “called it what it is” meaning Biden called Republicans what they are. They’re Nazis, he said so, next question. Having established his political opponents are fascists, Biden said about describing what they do, but surely knew what they do. Nazis murder people. It’s who they are. So, it shouldn’t surprise you that on January 6, Republicans killed “several police officers.” Biden said that yesterday. Watch this.
BIDEN: Imagine, Joe, if you turn on the television in Washington, D.C., and saw a mob of a thousand people storming down the hallways of the parliament, breaking down the doors, trying to overturn an outcome of the election and killing several police officers in the meantime.
Did you hear just that? On Insurrection Day last year, Donald Trump’s Nazi QAnon Army, “killed several police officers.” Really? We didn’t know that. How many police officers were killed, Joe Biden? Can you be more specific? Can you tell us their names? You can’t, of course, and he didn’t because there aren’t any. Not one. The only person we can say for sure who was killed on January 6 was an unarmed female Trump voter called Ashli Babbitt, who posed no physical threat to anyone. She was shot to death by a reckless police officer. That killing was never investigated because she was a Nazi and you don’t need an excuse to kill Nazis. With Nazis, the season never closes. There’s no bag limit. Shoot all you want. That’s the message. When you’re Nazi, there is no limit to what they can do to you and feel morally justified as they do.
Now, there was a time not so long ago when Democratic leaders told us that beat cops were Nazis. Remember that? They were the Nazis. Joe Biden’s own vice president raised bail money collected through something called the Minnesota Freedom Fund in order to free people accused of committing violence against the police. One of the so-called protesters that Kamala Harris helped spring from jail was a felon called Shawn Michael Tillman. He was out for three weeks before authorities say he shot a man to death at a train station.
Now, shortly after Kamala Harris boosted the Minnesota Freedom Fund, Joe Biden rewarded her by choosing her as his vice-presidential running mate. So, at the time, Biden was much less concerned with violence against law enforcement. His party was encouraging it. Cops were getting ambushed all over the country. In Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2020, a man called Ronnie Kato threatened to execute police officers and then made good on his threat. He shot two cops. He killed one of them.
In the Bronx that year, a man called Robert Williams approached two police officers in a marked police car. He pulled out a gun and for no stated reason opened fire. 12 hours later, Williams arrived at the 41st police precinct and started to shoot at more cops. He only stopped when he ran out of ammunition. This is a trend and it continues to this day.
Ambush-style attacks on the police increased in 2021 and they’re up again this year. In fact, they’re up 50% so far in 2022. How has Joe Biden responded to all of this? Did he alert the Justice Department to shut it down? No, he did the opposite. He invited leaders of BLM to the White House. That would be the same BLM that just a few years earlier publicly called for the murder of police officers in Minnesota.
BLM PROTESTERS CHANT: Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon.
“Pigs in a blanket, fry like bacon. Kill the police.” That was fine with Joe Biden. So, his position on cop killing, we can say with certainty, has changed in recent years, but then so have his views on a lot of things, including national unity. So, here’s a video that we have saved for more than a year and a half. It was recorded just after the election justice protests of January 6. At the time, Biden said he wanted to bring the country together. Do you remember this? Here it is.
BIDEN: Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this, bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting in our nation. We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature and so today, at this time, in this place, let’s start afresh.
“Stop the shouting. Lower the temperature. Unite our nation.” That’s exactly right. Whatever happened to that Joe Biden? We’d vote for that Joe Biden, probably. We’d certainly like him back, but we can’t now. America has changed too much. Why? Because the Biden program didn’t work. It turns out the country needed more than equity. We needed competence. We needed someone wise to run the Federal Reserve. We needed engineers who actually understand how energy grids work and don’t just posture about them. We needed a Pentagon that could win wars and a State Department that at least occasionally considered the interests of the United States. We need federal law enforcement that cares above all about justice. We needed Intel agencies that spy on our enemies, not on our citizens, but unfortunately, we didn’t get any of that.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a rally hosted by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) at Richard Montgomery High School on August 25, 2022 in Rockville, Maryland. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
So, inevitably things started to fray. Not all of these trends are Joe Biden’s fault. He had a lot of help, or decades, but a lot of this is Joe Biden’s fault, and he can’t admit it, just as he can’t face the prospect of his own internal future as his 80th birthday approaches, so he externalizes it. He yells at you, not himself. You’re the problem. You’re the reason things are broken, your racism, your transphobia, your minivan. It’s your fault. You stood in the way of progress. You are a Nazi. We hereby declare war on you.
That’s exactly what you’re seeing. That’s happening and you wonder as Joe Biden attempts this, if he can pull it off. Middle class America is the problem? That’s not an easy case to make. There are too many facts in the way of it. For example, last Thursday, the same day that Joe Biden announced that Republicans were fascists, that same day was perhaps not by chance. The very same day that Joe Rogan aired his interview with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.
In that conversation, Zuckerberg admitted that he censored the views of Hunter Biden’s laptop, any news of it whatsoever because the FBI told him to. The FBI told Zuckerberg this was Russian propaganda, even when they knew for a fact that it was not because they had the laptop. In other words, the FBI interfered with the presidential election. That seems like a big story. In fact, it seems like a turning point, but Joe Biden ignored it completely.
In a speech that day, Biden lashed out at anyone who might dare complain about the FBI. “It’s sickening to see the new attacks on the FBI,” he said, suggesting that what seemed like legitimate criticism was, in fact, a threat of violence. Speech is violence, but Biden was not alone in delivering that message.
That very same day, the Justice Department’s designated mouthpiece in NBC News, a man called Frank Figliuzzi, defended the FBI on social media to the same effect, and so did many others. So, if you step back, it started to look coordinated and you begin to wonder, could it be that Joe Biden is not simply a lone elderly Democratic politician? Could it be that Joe Biden is a mouthpiece for much larger forces?
It’s hard not to conclude that because no single American president could eliminate this many core civil liberties all by himself in a year and a half. All of a sudden, permanent Washington can raid the home of a former president.
“He had nuclear secrets.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Whatever. Who cares? He’s bad.”
And then round up his personal attorneys and then steal their privileged communications. That’s never been allowed. It is now. No single president did that. No single president could turn trespassing any public building into a felony and then arrest hundreds of people for it and send to solitary confinement in the DC jail. No single president could do that. No single president could redefine an entire opposition party as Nazis and then proceed as if that were perfectly normal. That couldn’t happen. No president could do that.
A president would need help to do that and Biden has had it. This didn’t arrive out of the blue. We’ve been building toward this moment for a very long time. Last year, the Biden administration decided to have thousands of law-abiding Republicans fired from their jobs, their lives destroyed. How did they do that? Well, they mandated an experimental vaccine that didn’t actually work, a drug the UK government now admits can be dangerous and shouldn’t be used on women who are pregnant or breastfeeding that drug and then they watched who disobeyed their instructions.
BIDEN: I’m announcing that the Department of Labor is developing an emergency rule to require all employers with 100 or more employees that together employ over 80 million workers to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated or show a negative test at least once a week. We’re going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated coworkers. We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin.
Oh, so that was a fast way to find out who was disobedient, but just in case there was any question, at the very same time, Biden demanded that the entire American population wear paper masks on their faces not to protect them or to keep them healthy. That didn’t work, but as a kind of uniform, the Democratic Party’s equivalent of the Mao pin and anyone who didn’t couldn’t be trusted that look.
BIDEN:I hope everybody’s realized by now these masks make a difference and the last thing, the last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything’s fine. Take off your mask. Forget it. It still matters.
The mask makes a difference. That was from March of last year, at which point we knew the mask did not, in fact, make a difference except to cut off oxygen to your brain, but the mask made quite a political difference. It separated the obedient from the disobedient immediately.
You knew exactly whose team everyone was on by looking at their faces and that, of course, was the point and once we allowed that, the progression continued and it’s been stark. Wear a mask or you’re dangerous. Take the shot or you’re a criminal and at this point, vote for Joe Biden or you’re a Nazi. That’s where we are now. So, as Biden explained on Tuesday, this is a big change. Once you’ve been declared a Nazi, you don’t have rights. You can’t, for example, be trusted with firearms.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks before signing the agreement for Finland and Sweden to be included in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the East Room of the White House on August 9, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
BIDEN: But we’re not stopping here. I’m determined to ban assault weapons in this country. Determined. I did it once before and I’ll do it again.
We could rebut that. Yeah, they did before. It didn’t work. That’s not the point. Look at the rage. Look at the rage. That was this week. Remember a year ago? “Stop the shouting. Lower the temperature. Unite our nation.” That was last year. Not anymore, Nazis. They’re taking off the velvet glove and we’re about to feel the steel beneath it.
Tucker Carlson currently serves as the host of FOX News Channel’s (FNC) Tucker Carlson Tonight (weekdays 8PM/ET). He joined the network in 2009 as a contributor.
The left praises democracy when elected but claims the right will destroy democracy when it loses. Pictured: Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton discusses the 2016 election during her 2017 book tour. (Photo: Bastiaan Slabbers, NurPhoto/Getty Images)
Recently, Democrats have been despondent over President Joe Biden’s sinking poll numbers. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border, and COVID-19 all have lost majority support.
As a result, the left now variously alleges that either in 2022, when it expects to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when it fears losing the presidency, Republicans will “destroy democracy” or stage a coup.
A cynic might suggest that those on the left praise democracy when they get elected, only to claim it is broken when they lose. Or they hope to avoid their defeat by trying to terrify the electorate. Or they mask their own revolutionary propensities by projecting them onto their opponents.
After all, who is trying to federalize election laws in national elections contrary to the spirit of the Constitution? Who wishes to repeal or circumvent the Electoral College? Who wishes to destroy the more than 180-year-old Senate filibuster, the over 150-year-old nine-justice Supreme Court, and the more than 60-year-old 50-state union?
Who is attacking the founding constitutional idea of two senators per state?
The Constitution also clearly states that “When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside.” Who slammed through the impeachment of former President Donald Trump without a presiding chief justice?
Never had a president been either impeached twice or tried in the Senate as a private citizen. Who did both?
The left further broke prior precedent by impeaching Trump without a special counsel’s report, formal hearings, witnesses, and cross-examinations.
Who exactly is violating federal civil rights legislation?
New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in December decided to ration new potentially lifesaving COVID-19 medicines, partially on the basis of race, in the name of “equity.”
The agency also allegedly used racial preferences to determine who would be first tested for COVID-19. Yet such racial discrimination seems in direct violation of various title clauses of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
That law makes it clear that no public agency can use race to deny “equal utilization of any public facility which is owned, operated, or managed by or on behalf of any State or subdivision thereof.” Who is behind the new racial discrimination?
In summer 2020, many local- and state-mandated quarantines and bans on public assemblies were simply ignored with impunity—if demonstrators were associated with Black Lives Matter or protesting the police.
Currently, the Biden administration is also flagrantly embracing the neo-Confederate idea of nullifying federal law.
The Biden administration has allowed nearly 2 million foreign nationals to enter the United States illegally across the southern border—in hopes they will soon be loyal constituents.
The administration has not asked illegal entrants either to be tested for or vaccinated against COVID-19. Yet all U.S. citizens in the military and employed by the federal government are threatened with dismissal if they fail to become vaccinated.
Such selective exemption of lawbreaking non-U.S. citizens, but not millions of U.S. citizens, seems in conflict with the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
After entering the United States illegally, millions of immigrants are protected by some 550 “sanctuary city” jurisdictions. These revolutionary areas all brazenly nullify immigration law by refusing to allow federal immigration authorities to deport illegal immigrant lawbreakers.
At various times in our nation’s history—1832, 1861-65, and 1961-63—America was either racked by internal violence or fought a civil war over similar state nullification of federal laws.
In the last five years, we have indeed seen many internal threats to democracy.
Hillary Clinton hired a foreign national to concoct a dossier of dirt against her presidential opponent. She disguised her own role by projecting her efforts to use Russian sources onto Trump. She used her contacts in government and media to seed the dossier to create a national hysteria about “Russian collusion.” Clinton urged Biden not to accept the 2020 result if he lost, and herself claimed Trump was not a legitimately elected president.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has violated laws governing the chain of command. Some retired officers violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice by slandering their commander in chief. Others publicly were on record calling for the military to intervene to remove an elected president.
Some of the nation’s top officials in the FBI and intelligence committee have misled or lied under oath either to federal investigators or the U.S. Congress, again, mostly with impunity.
All these sustained revolutionary activities were justified as necessary to achieve the supposedly noble ends of removing Trump.
The result is Third World-like jurisprudence in America aimed at rewarding friends and punishing enemies, masked by service to social justice.
We are in a dangerous revolutionary cycle. But the threat is not so much from loud, buffoonish, one-day rioters on Jan. 6. Such clownish characters did not for 120 days loot, burn, attack courthouses and police precincts, cause over 30 deaths, injure 2,000 policemen, and destroy at least $2 billion in property—all under the banner of revolutionary justice.
Even more ominously, stone-cold sober elites are systematically waging an insidious revolution in the shadows that seeks to dismantle America’s institutions and the rule of law as we have known them.
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The Honorable Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Washington D.C.
Dear Representative Adam Kinzinger,
I noticed that you are a pro-life representative that has a long record of standing up for unborn babies! It was in the 1970’s when I was first introduced to the works of Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop and I wanted to commend their writings and films to you.
Washington, DC – Today, Congressman Adam Kinzinger (IL-16) joined his House Republican colleagues in a press conference urging Democratic leadership to allow a vote on the Born Alive protections. The proposal would protect babies who survive abortion and provide them with the same medical care that any other premature baby would receive. Yesterday, the Democrats blocked the proposed legislation—for the 17th time—from coming before the House for a vote.
Joining the Congressman and House Republican leaders at the press conference this morning was Jill Stanek, an Illinois nurse and pro-life advocate who has witnessed the devastating realities of these pro-abortion laws. The Illinois legislature is currently debating two abortion bills, similar to the extreme pro-abortion agendas in New York and Virginia.
It seems you have a grudge against President Trump while our freedoms under President Biden are being taken away. I recommend to you the article below:
Roger Kimball Editor and Publisher, The New Criterion
Mr. Kimball concludes his article with these words:
That’s one melancholy lesson of the January 6 insurrection hoax: that America is fast mutating from a republic, in which individual liberty is paramount, into an oligarchy, in which conformity is increasingly demanded and enforced.
Another lesson was perfectly expressed by Donald Trump when he reflected on the unremitting tsunami of hostility that he faced as President. “They’re after you,” he more than once told his supporters. “I’m just in the way.”
There were a few Republicans Thursday who surprised observers when they voted in support of holding former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress and referring him to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.
Prior to the vote, four Republicans were considered a lock to approve the criminal referral, according to Capitol Hill sources: Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Fred Upton of Michigan and Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio.
Cheney and Kinzinger are on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and have for months stood alone as the only two House Republicans willing to speak out against former President Donald Trump’s continued lies about the 2020 election. They were the only two House Republicans to vote for the formation of the select committee on June 30.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formed the select committee after Republicans rejected a bipartisan commission that would have been evenly split between five Democrats and five Republicans. Only 35 Republicans voted for that measure when itpassed the House of Representatives, and it was defeated by a GOP filibuster in the Senate.
From left: Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a Democrat, and Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois arrive for the House Select Committee hearing investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
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Upton has served in the House for more than three decades, since 1987, and will face a primary challenge next year because of his willingness to stand up to Trump.
Gonzalez is retiring from Congress next year, after only four years in the House. “While my desire to build a fuller family life is at the heart of my decision, it is also true that the current state of our politics, especially many of the toxic dynamics inside our own party, is a significant factor in my decision,” Gonzalez said in September when heannounced he would not seek another term.
The remaining five Republicans included three who voted for impeachment — Peter Meijer of Michigan, John Katko of New York and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington — and two House Republicans who did not vote to impeach Trump: Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
Trump seems never to have discerned what a viper’s nest our politics has become for anyone who is not a paid-up member of The Club.
Maybe Trump understands this now. I have no insight into that question. I am pretty confident, though, that the 74 plus million people who voted for him understand it deeply. It’s another reason that The Club should be wary of celebrating its victory too expansively.
Friedrich Hayek took one of the two epigraphs for his book, The Road to Serfdom, from the philosopher David Hume. “It is seldom,” Hume wrote, “that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” Much as I admire Hume, I wonder whether he got this quite right. Sometimes, I would argue, liberty is erased almost instantaneously.
I’d be willing to wager that Joseph Hackett, confronted with Hume’s observation, would express similar doubts. I would be happy to ask Mr. Hackett myself, but he is inaccessible. If the ironically titled “Department of Justice” has its way, he will be inaccessible for a long, long time—perhaps as long as 20 years.
Joseph Hackett, you see, is a 51-year-old Trump supporter and member of an organization called the Oath Keepers, a group whose members have pledged to “defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.” The FBI does not like the Oath Keepers—agents arrested its leader in January and have picked up many other members in the months since. Hackett traveled to Washington from his home in Florida to join the January 6 rally. According to court documents, he entered the Capitol at 2:45 that afternoon and left some nine minutes later, at 2:54. The next day, he went home. On May 28, he was apprehended by the FBI and indicted on a long list of charges, including conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, destruction of government property, and illegally entering a restricted building.
As far as I have been able to determine, no evidence of Hackett destroying property has come to light. According to his wife, it is not even clear that he entered the Capitol. But he certainly was in the environs. He was a member of the Oath Keepers. He was a supporter of Donald Trump. Therefore, he must be neutralized.
Joseph Hackett is only one of hundreds of citizens who have beenbranded as “domestic terrorists” trying to “overthrow the government” and who are now languishing, in appalling conditions, jailed as political prisoners of an angry state apparat.
Let me recommend that you read this letter below from Senator Ron Johnson and his colleagues:
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), along with senators Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), sent a letter on Monday to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting information on the unequal application of justice between the individuals who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, and those involved in the unrest during the spring and summer of 2020. The senators sent 18 questions to the attorney general on what steps the DOJ has taken to prosecute individuals who committed crimes during both events, and requested a response by June 21.
“Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances,” the senators wrote. “This constitutional right should be cherished and protected. Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted. However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning.”
The full text of the letter can be found here and below.
June 7, 2021
The Honorable Merrick B. Garland
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Attorney General Garland:
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is currently dedicating enormous resources and manpower to investigating and prosecuting the criminals who breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. We fully support and appreciate the efforts by the DOJ and its federal, state and local law enforcement partners to hold those responsible fully accountable.
We join all Americans in the expectation that the DOJ’s response to the events of January 6 will result in rightful criminal prosecutions and accountability. As you are aware, the mission of the DOJ is, among other things, to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans. Today, we write to request information about our concerns regarding potential unequal justice administered in response to other recent instances of mass unrest, destruction, and loss of life throughout the United States.
During the spring and summer of 2020, individuals used peaceful protests across the country to engage in rioting and other crimes that resulted in loss of life, injuries to law enforcement officers, and significant property damage.[1] A federal court house in Portland, Oregon, has been effectively under siege for months.[2] Property destruction stemming from the 2020 social justice protests throughout the country will reportedly result in at least $1 billion to $2 billion in paid insurance claims.[3]
In June 2020, the DOJ reportedly compiled the following information regarding last year’s unrest:
“One federal officer [was] killed, 147 federal officers [were] injured and 600 local officers [were] injured around the country during the protests, frequently from projectiles.”[4]
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), “since the start of the unrest there has been 81 Federal Firearms License burglaries of an estimated loss of 1,116 firearms; 876 reported arsons; 76 explosive incidents; and 46 ATF arrests[.]”[5]
Despite these numerous examples of violence occurring during these protests, it appears that individuals charged with committing crimes at these events may benefit from infrequent prosecutions and minimal, if any, penalties. According to a recent article, “prosecutors have approved deals in at least half a dozen federal felony cases arising from clashes between protesters and law enforcement in Oregon last summer. The arrangements — known as deferred resolution agreements — will leave the defendants with a clean criminal record if they stay out of trouble for a period of time and complete a modest amount of community service, according to defense attorneys and court records.”[6]
DOJ’s apparent unwillingness to punish these individuals who allegedly committed crimes during the spring and summer 2020 protests stands in stark contrast to the harsher treatment of the individuals charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. To date, DOJ has charged 510 individuals stemming from Capitol breach.[7] DOJ maintains and updates a webpage that lists the defendants charged with crimes committed at the Capitol. This database includes information such as the defendant’s name, charge(s), case number, case documents, location of arrest, case status, and informs readers when the entry was last updated.[8] No such database exists for alleged perpetrators of crimes associated with the spring and summer 2020 protests. It is unclear whether any defendants charged with crimes in connection with the Capitol breach have received deferred resolution agreements.
Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances. This constitutional right should be cherished and protected. Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted. However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning. In order to assist Congress in conducting its oversight work, we respectfully request answers to the following questions by June 21, 2021:
Spring and Summer 2020 Unrest:
Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the unrest in the spring and summer of 2020? If so, how many times and for which locations/riots?
How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020 were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
How many individuals were incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement? What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
How many of these individuals were released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?[9]
How many DOJ prosecutors were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol Breach:
Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the January 6, 2021 protests and Capitol breach? If so, how many times and how many additional arrests resulted from law enforcement utilizing geolocation information?
How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
How many individuals are incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement? What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
How many of these individuals have been released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?
How many DOJ prosecutors have been assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
I want to recommend to you a video on YOU TUBE that runs 28 minutes and 39 seconds by Francis Schaeffer entitled because it discusses the founding of our nation and what the FOUNDERS believed:
Edith Schaeffer with her husband, Francis Schaeffer, in 1970 in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri, a Christian commune.
________________
______________________
March 23, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view. Although we are both Christians and have the Bible as the basis for our moral views, I did want you to take a close look at the views of the pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff too. Hentoff became convinced of the pro-life view because of secular evidence that shows that the unborn child is human. I would ask you to consider his evidence and then of course reverse your views on abortion.
___________________
The pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff wrote a fine article below I wanted to share with you.
Nat Hentoff is an atheist, but he became a pro-life activist because of the scientific evidence that shows that the unborn child is a distinct and separate human being and even has a separate DNA. His perspective is a very intriguing one that I thought you would be interested in. I have shared before many cases (Bernard Nathanson, Donald Trump, Paul Greenberg, Kathy Ireland) when other high profile pro-choice leaders have changed their views and this is just another case like those. I have contacted the White House over and over concerning this issue and have even received responses. I am hopeful that people will stop and look even in a secular way (if they are not believers) at this abortion debate and see that the unborn child is deserving of our protection.That is why the writings of Nat Hentoff of the Cato Institute are so crucial.
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.
Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION
_____________________________________
Dr. Francis schaeffer – from Part 5 of Whatever happened to human race?) Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 5 | Truth and History
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – A Christian Manifesto – Dr. Francis Schaeffer Lecture
Francis Schaeffer – A 700 Club Special! ~ Francis Schaeffer 1982
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – 1984 SOUNDWORD LABRI CONFERENCE VIDEO – Q&A With Francis & Edith Schaeffer
http://www.NewsandOpinion.com | A longtime friend of mine is married to a doctor who also performs abortions. At the dinner table one recent evening, their 9-year-old son — having heard a word whose meaning he didn’t know — asked, “What is an abortion?” His mother, choosing her words carefully, described the procedure in simple terms.
“But,” said her son, “that means killing the baby.” The mother then explained that there are certain months during which an abortion cannot be performed, with very few exceptions. The 9-year-old shook his head. “But,” he said, “it doesn’t matter what month. It still means killing the babies.”
Hearing the story, I wished it could be repeated to the justices of the Supreme Court, in the hope that at least five of them might act on this 9-year-old’s clarity of thought and vision.
The boy’s spontaneous insistence on the primacy of life also reminded me of a powerful pro-life speaker and writer who, many years ago, helped me become a pro-lifer. He was a preacher, a black preacher. He said: “There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of a higher order than the right to life.
“That,” he continued, “was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore out of your right to be concerned.”
This passionate reverend used to warn: “Don’t let the pro-choicers convince you that a fetus isn’t a human being. That’s how the whites dehumanized us … The first step was to distort the image of us as human beings in order to justify what they wanted to do — and not even feel they’d done anything wrong.”
That preacher was Jesse Jackson. Later, he decided to run for the presidency — and it was a credible campaign that many found inspiring in its focus on what still had to be done on civil rights. But Jackson had by now become “pro-choice” — much to the appreciation of most of those in the liberal base.
The last time I saw Jackson was years later, on a train from Washington to New York. I told him of a man nominated, but not yet confirmed, to a seat on a federal circuit court of appeals. This candidate was a strong supporter of capital punishment — which both the Rev. Jackson and I oppose, since it involves the irreversible taking of a human life by the state.
I asked Jackson if he would hold a press conference in Washington, criticizing the nomination, and he said he would. The reverend was true to his word; the press conference took place; but that nominee was confirmed to the federal circuit court. However, I appreciated Jackson’s effort.
On that train, I also told Jackson that I’d been quoting — in articles, and in talks with various groups — from his compelling pro-life statements. I asked him if he’d had any second thoughts on his reversal of those views.
Usually quick to respond to any challenge that he is not consistent in his positions, Jackson paused, and seemed somewhat disquieted at my question. Then he said to me, “I’ll get back to you on that.” I still patiently await what he has to say.
As time goes on, my deepening concern with the consequences of abortion is that its validation by the Supreme Court, as a constitutional practice, helps support the convictions of those who, in other controversies — euthanasia, assisted suicide and the “futility doctrine” by certain hospital ethics committees — believe that there are lives not worth continuing.
Around the time of my conversation with Jackson on the train, I attended a conference on euthanasia at Clark College in Worcester, Mass. There, I met Derek Humphry, the founder of the Hemlock Society, and already known internationally as a key proponent of the “death with dignity” movement.
He told me that for some years in this country, he had considerable difficulty getting his views about assisted suicide and, as he sees it, compassionate euthanasia into the American press.
“But then,” Humphry told me, “a wonderful thing happened. It opened all the doors for me.”
“What was that wonderful thing?” I asked.
“Roe v. Wade,” he answered.
The devaluing of human life — as the 9-year-old at the dinner table put it more vividly — did not end with making abortion legal, and therefore, to some people, moral. The word “baby” does not appear in Roe v. Wade — let alone the word “killing.”
And so, the termination of “lives not worth living” goes on.
______________________
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. Now after presenting the secular approach of Nat Hentoff I wanted to make some comments concerning our shared Christian faith. I respect you for putting your faith in Christ for your eternal life. I am pleading to you on the basis of the Bible to please review your religious views concerning abortion. It was the Bible that caused the abolition movement of the 1800’s and it also was the basis for Martin Luther King’s movement for civil rights and it also is the basis for recognizing the unborn children.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733,
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
It is truly sad to me that liberals will lie in order to attack good Christian people like state senator Jason Rapert of Conway, Arkansas because he headed a group of pro-life senators that got a pro-life bill through the Arkansas State Senate the last week of January in 2013. I have gone back and […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Sometimes you can see evidences in someone’s life of how content they really are. I saw something like that on 2-8-13 when I confronted a blogger that goes by the name “AngryOldWoman” on the Arkansas Times Blog. See below. Leadership Crisis in America Published on Jul 11, 2012 Picture of Adrian Rogers above from 1970′s […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min 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, […]
E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]
3 My child,[a] never forget the things I have taught you. Store my commands in your heart. 2 If you do this, you will live many years, and your life will be satisfying. 3 Never let loyalty and kindness leave you! Tie them around your neck as a reminder. Write them deep within your heart. 4 Then you will find favor with both God and people, and you will earn a good reputation.
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6 Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.
7 Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. 8 Then you will have healing for your body and strength for your bones.
9 Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce. 10 Then he will fill your barns with grain, and your vats will overflow with good wine.
11 My child, don’t reject the Lord’s discipline, and don’t be upset when he corrects you. 12 For the Lord corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights.[b]
13 Joyful is the person who finds wisdom, the one who gains understanding. 14 For wisdom is more profitable than silver, and her wages are better than gold. 15 Wisdom is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. 16 She offers you long life in her right hand, and riches and honor in her left. 17 She will guide you down delightful paths; all her ways are satisfying. 18 Wisdom is a tree of life to those who embrace her; happy are those who hold her tightly.
19 By wisdom the Lord founded the earth; by understanding he created the heavens. 20 By his knowledge the deep fountains of the earth burst forth, and the dew settles beneath the night sky.
21 My child, don’t lose sight of common sense and discernment. Hang on to them, 22 for they will refresh your soul. They are like jewels on a necklace. 23 They keep you safe on your way, and your feet will not stumble. 24 You can go to bed without fear; you will lie down and sleep soundly. 25 You need not be afraid of sudden disaster or the destruction that comes upon the wicked, 26 for the Lord is your security. He will keep your foot from being caught in a trap.
27 Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it’s in your power to help them. 28 If you can help your neighbor now, don’t say, “Come back tomorrow, and then I’ll help you.”
29 Don’t plot harm against your neighbor, for those who live nearby trust you. 30 Don’t pick a fight without reason, when no one has done you harm.
31 Don’t envy violent people or copy their ways. 32 Such wicked people are detestable to the Lord, but he offers his friendship to the godly.
33 The Lord curses the house of the wicked, but he blesses the home of the upright.
34 The Lord mocks the mockers but is gracious to the humble.[c]
35 The wise inherit honor, but fools are put to shame!
How to Be the Father of a Wise Child Proverbs 1:1-5, 20-22
HOW TO BE THE FATHER OF A WISE CHILD | PROVERBS 1:1-5, 20-22 | #1932 So what has happened in the last years? Well, prayer is out, policemen are in. Bibles are out, values clarification is in. The Ten Commandments are out, rape and armed robbery, gang warfare, murder and cheating are in. Instruction that tells us that we were created in the image of God is out, evolution is in. Corporal punishment is out, disrespect and rebellion is in. Traditional values are out and unwed motherhood is in. Abstinence is out and condoms and abortion are in. Learning is out and social engineering is in. History is out and revisionism is in. And the problem primarily, believe it or not, is with fathers. Arrogant fathers who fail to accept their responsibility. I want to talk to dads today, and I want to tell you how not to be the father of a fool. How to be the father of a wise child. Now go back to these three categories of persons that we looked at here in verse 22, and let me describe them more carefully and I think you’ll recognize some children that you know. First of all, let’s think of the ignorance of the simple. How is he described? Look if you will in Romans 1 verse 22, “How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity?” That’s his first mark. He loves his simplicity. He enjoys being a child. He enjoys the carefree life. He doesn’t like any serious thoughts. One teenager said, “I am worried. My Dad slaves away at his job so I won’t have to need for a thing and so I can have a college education. My mom spends every day washing and ironing and picking up my things and looking after me. And she takes care of me when I’m sick.” His friend said, “You’re worried? What are you worried about?” He said, “I’m afraid they might try to escape.” The children just love having everything done for them, the carefree simple life. That’s the life of the simple.
HOW TO BE THE FATHER OF A WISE CHILD | PROVERBS 1:1-5, 20-22 | #1932 there, out there on the front porch is a guy 17 feet tall. You’re looking in his knee caps. And let’s say he has a voice like thunder. And he begins to talk to you and tell you what to do. My soul! Well, if he’s that big and sounds like that, one thing you sure do hope is that he’s gentle, don’t you? That’s what the children want out of their dad; somebody who’s gentle. Oh, they want a dad they can look up to. They want a dad who’s the strongest, wisest, smartest, fastest, richest, goodest dad. I know goodest is not a word. The best dad in all the world! But they want him to be gentle! Touch them, hug them, show other non-verbal language. Be transparent. Let them know of your fears, and your joys, and your disappointments, your failures, and your goals. They already know you’re not perfect; they just don’t want you to be a phony. And then, be available to them. Oh, l wish l had more time for that, but just take it as a priority that you’re going to be available to your child. You say, “Pastor Rogers, very frankly I’m not adequate for what you’ve just described.” I know you’re not. I’m not adequate. Listen to me, none of us has what it takes to be this kind of a dad or mom. That’s the reason we need Jesus isn’t it? That’s the reason we need the Lord. That’s the reason we’ve got to have Christ in our hearts! Because the Christian life is not difficult, it is impossible. So there’s only one who can do it and that’s Jesus. But He will do it in us and through us if we’ll let Him. So the best thing you can do for your children is to love God will all of your heart. Give your heart to Jesus. Let’s bow our heads in prayer. Heads are bowed and eyes are closed. If you would like to be saved today, to be a child of God, if you’d like to know that your sin is forgiven, if you would like to know that Heaven is your home, if you would like to have the power and wisdom that Jesus alone can give, I want to help you to invite Christ into your heart and trust Him. Would you pray like this? “Dear Lord, I need You. I need to be saved. I’m a sinner. My sin deserves judgment. But l need mercy, not judgment. I want You to forgive me, God. I want You to cleanse me. I want You to save me. Lord Jesus, You said if I would trust You, You would save me. I trust You right now, right this moment. I don’t ask for a sign. I don’t look for a feeling. I just stand on Your Word, and I receive You now as my Lord and Savior. Come into my heart, forgive my sin, save me Jesus.” Pray that prayer. Pray it. Pray it from your heart. “Save me, Jesus.” Pray it. Ask Him to save you. “Save me, Jesus.” Did you ask Him? By faith, pray this way, “Thank You for saving me, Lord Jesus. I receive it by faith, like a little child. You’re now my Lord and Savior. Give me the courage to make it public. In Your name I pray, Amen.”
The world is much freer today than when I was born, largely because the “Evil Empire” collapsed.
The Soviet Union was awful. It killed at least 20 million of its own people (some say as many as 60 million). It enslaved and impoverishedits own citizens, as well as those who languished behind the “Iron Curtain.”
But since the last dictator of the Soviet Union just died, let’s examine Mikhail Gorbachev’s role.
An editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal is worth reading because it explains that his biggest achievement was not using bloodshed to preserve communist rule.
Mikhail Gorbachev…rose through the Communist ranks but presided over the end of the regime. His greatest achievement was allowing the Cold War to end without a war or a worse conflagration that the world feared for decades. …He understood that the country he inherited in 1985 when he became general secretary of the Communist Party was losing the Cold War to a revitalized West. Its economy wasn’t the juggernaut of central-planning genius that the CIA had assessed at the time. …Ronald Reagan had reversed the U.S. malaise of the 1970s with a defense buildup and reforms that unleashed America’s private economy. …Gorbachev’s reforms were intended to revive the Soviet regime to be able to compete with Reagan’s America. …The countries of Eastern Europe, long enslaved as members of the Warsaw Pact, saw their moment to break free. Gorbachev refused to send in the tanks as his Soviet predecessors had done in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. …mutual trust between Gorbachev and Reagan…helped to bring the Cold War to an end with freedom as the victor.
George Will is also grateful that Gorbachev allowed Soviet communism to whither away without violence. Here’s some of what he wrote in his Washington Post column.
Failing upward into the world’s gratitude, Mikhail Gorbachev became a hero by precipitating the liquidation of the political system he had tried to preserve… Like Christopher Columbus, who accidentally discovered the New World, Gorbachev stumbled into greatness by misunderstanding where he was going.…Gorbachev’s most noble facet, his “extraordinary reluctance” to use violence to hold the Soviet system together. …President Ronald Reagan…described the Soviet Union as “the focus of evil in the modern world.” …he launched a high-tech challenge to a Soviet Union in which 30 percent of hospitals lacked indoor plumbing. …The Soviet Union’s brittle husk crumbled as Gorbachev struggled to preserve it. His reputation rests on the world’s amnesia about this.
Professor William Taubman of Amherst also opinedin today’s Wall Street Journal.
He seems more sympathetic to Gorbachev than George Will, but also lauds him for opting against a bloody crackdown.
Mikhail Gorbachev…deserves to be celebrated… When he entered office in 1985, Gorbachev had almost unlimited power. He could have presided indefinitely over the status quo. Instead, he…acquiesced in the dismemberment of the Soviet empire without the violence that accompanied the collapse of most other empires.…he persuaded communist hard-liners to vote themselves out of office. …Gorbachev was happy to give up domination of Eastern Europe… Gorbachev tried to save the Soviet Union but ended up hastening its destruction. When it became clear in late 1991 that his great project was doomed, he could have lashed out, mobilizing the military to save him and what was left of the U.S.S.R., at the risk of civil war. Instead, he bowed out with dignity.
Matt Welch of Reason also weighs in, emphasizing that Gorbachev was not great, but that he allowed a great thing to happen.
f the late Mikhail Gorbachev had gotten his way, the world would look a lot different than it does now. Socialism would still be the dominant economic system from Leipzig to Yakutsk. The Warsaw Pact would still exist; a unified Germany would not, nor would the independent Baltic states. Above all, the planet would still be blighted by the wheezing and malevolent existence of what Ronald Reagan rightly described as “the evil empire”—the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. …Yet we should not judge the eighth and final Soviet leader, who died Tuesday at the age of 91, by his base geopolitical desires but rather by the glorious human flourishing that his actions—and especially his inactions—allowed to take place. …November 9, 1989 became the most liberating day of the most liberating month of the most liberating year in human history.
Last but not least, David Satter shared some insightsin a column late last year for the Wall Street Journal.
During its 70-year life, the Soviet regime killed at least 20 million of its citizens for political reasons. …however, the Soviet Union wasn’t indomitable. In 1988 the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev allowed a space for free information in Soviet society, creating a contradiction between free speech and a system based on lies.When glasnost wasn’t repressed, it led to the collapse of the system. …President Reagan rejected the idea that the West had no alternative to accommodation. In the words of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, he took the offensive “ideologically and geostrategically.” …As for his strategy, Reagan said it was simple: “We win. They lose.” …the U.S. rearmament drive began to bear fruit. …Stunned by these developments, the Soviets eventually decided to take the risk of major reforms.
As you might expect, I like the emphasis on Reagan’s role. Yet another reason why he is the only great president of my lifetime.
The takeaway from today’s column is that Gorbachev mostly deserves praise for what he didn’t do. By opting against a crackdown, he allowed the Soviet Union to wind up on the “ash heap of history.”
P.P.S. And here’s my collection of anti-collectivism humor, including many columns mocking communism.
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Mikhail Gorbachev, seen in 1984, when he was a Russian Politburo member and second in line at the Kremlin.
‘A man one can do business with’
Hoping to shift resources to the civilian sector of the Soviet economy, Gorbachev began to argue in favor of an end to the arms race with the West.
However, throughout his six years in office, Gorbachev always seemed to be moving too fast for the party establishment — which saw its privileges threatened — and too slow for more radical reformers, who hoped to do away with the one-party state and the command economy.
Desperately trying to stay in control of the reform process, he seemed to have underestimated the depth of the economic crisis. He also seemed to have had a blind spot for the power of the nationality issue: Glasnost created ever-louder calls for independence from the Baltics and other Soviet republics in the late 1980s.
He was successful in foreign policy, but primarily from an international perspective, with other world leaders taking note. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called him “a man one can do business with.”
In 1986, face to face with American President Ronald Reagan at a summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, Gorbachev made a stunning proposal: eliminate all long-range missiles held by the United States and the Soviet Union. It was the beginning of the end of the Cold War.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 “for his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community.”
The pact that resulted, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, endured as a pillar of arms control for three decades until, in 2019, the United States formally withdrew and the Russian government said it had been consigned to the trash can.
Gorbachev speaks during a visit to Ottawa, Canada in 1990.
Moral Support: “One Dimensional Man” author Herbert Marcuse accompanies Bettina Aptheker, center, and Angela Davis’ mother, Sallye Davis, to Angela Davis’ 1972 trial in San Jose. Associated Press
J.I.PACKER WROTE OF SCHAEFFER, “His communicative style was not that of acautious academic who labors for exhaustive coverage and dispassionate objectivity. It was rather that of an impassioned thinker who paints his vision of eternal truth in bold strokes and stark contrasts.Yet it is a fact that MANY YOUNG THINKERS AND ARTISTS…HAVE FOUND SCHAEFFER’S ANALYSES A LIFELINE TO SANITY WITHOUT WHICH THEY COULD NOT HAVE GONE ON LIVING.”
Francis Schaeffer in Art and the Bible noted, “Many modern artists, it seems to me, have forgotten the value that art has in itself. Much modern art is far too intellectual to be great art. Many modern artists seem not to see the distinction between man and non-man, and it is a part of the lostness of modern man that they no longer see value in the work of art as a work of art.”
Many modern artists are left in this point of desperation that Schaeffer points out and it reminds me of the despair that Solomon speaks of in Ecclesiastes. Christian scholar Ravi Zacharias has noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term ‘under the sun.’ What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system, and you are left with only this world of time plus chanceplus matter.” THIS IS EXACT POINT SCHAEFFER SAYS SECULAR ARTISTSARE PAINTING FROM TODAY BECAUSE THEY BELIEVED ARE A RESULTOF MINDLESS CHANCE.
Communism catches the attention of the young at heart but it has always brought repression wherever it is tried. “True Communism has never been tried” is something I was told just a few months ago by a well meaning young person who was impressed with the ideas of Karl Marx.I responded that there are only 5 communist countries in the world today and they lack political, economic and religious freedom.
Hope in Marxism-Leninism is a leap in the area of nonreason. From the Russian Revolution until 1959 a total of 66 million prisoners died. This was deemed acceptable to the leaders because internal security was to be gained at any cost. The ends justified the means. The materialism of Marxism gives no basis for human dignity or rights. These hold to their philosophy against all reason and close their eyes to the oppression of the system.
WHY DOES COMMUNISM FAIL?
Communism has always failed because of its materialist base. Francis Schaeffer does a great job of showing that in this clip below. Also Schaeffer shows that there were lots of similar things about the basis for both the French and Russia revolutions and he exposes the materialist and humanist basis of both revolutions.
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Bettina’s father was Herbert Aptheker (July 31, 1915 – March 17, 2003) was an American Marxist historian and political activist. From the 1940s, Aptheker was a prominent figure in U.S. scholarly discourse. David Horowitz described Aptheker as “the Communist Party’s most prominent Cold War intellectual”.[1]
Schaeffer compares communism with French Revolution and Napoleon.
1. Lenin took charge in Russia much as Napoleon took charge in France – when people get desperate enough, they’ll take a dictator.
Other examples: Hitler, Julius Caesar. It could happen again.
2. Communism is very repressive, stifling political and artistic freedom. Even allies have to be coerced. (Poland).
Communists say repression is temporary until utopia can be reached – yet there is no evidence of progress in that direction. Dictatorship appears to be permanent.
3. No ultimate basis for morality (right and wrong) – materialist base of communism is just as humanistic as French. Only have “arbitrary absolutes” no final basis for right and wrong.
How is Christianity different from both French Revolution and Communism?
Contrast N.T. Christianity – very positive government reform and great strides against injustice. (especially under Wesleyan revival).
Bible gives absolutes – standards of right and wrong. It shows the problems and why they exist (man’s fall and rebellion against God).
WHY DOES THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM CATCH THE ATTENTION OF SO MANY IDEALISTIC YOUNG PEOPLE? The reason is very simple.
In HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, the late Francis A. Schaeffer wrote:
Materialism, the philosophic base for Marxist-Leninism, gives no basis for the dignity or rights of man. Where Marxist-Leninism is not in power it attracts and converts by talking much of dignity and rights, but its materialistic base gives no basis for the dignity or rights of man. Yet is attracts by its constant talk of idealism.
To understand this phenomenon we must understand that Marx reached over to that for which Christianity does give a base–the dignity of man–and took the words as words of his own. The only understanding of idealistic sounding Marxist-Leninism is that it is (in this sense) a Christian heresy. Not having the Christian base, until it comes to power it uses the words for which Christianity does give a base. But wherever Marxist-Leninism has had power, it has at no place in history shown where it has not brought forth oppression. As soon as they have had the power, the desire of the majority has become a concept without meaning.
Is Christianity at all like Communism?
Sometimes Communism sounds very “Christian” – desirable goals of equality, justice, etc but these terms are just borrowed from the New Testament. Schaeffer elsewhere explains by saying Marxism is a Christian heresy.
Below is a great article. Free-lance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.
This article was published January 30, 2011 at 2:28 a.m. Here is a portion of that article below:
A final advantage is the mutation of socialism into so many variants over the past century or so. Precisely because Karl Marx was unclear as to how it would work in practice, socialism has always been something of an empty vessel into which would be revolutionaries seeking personal meaning and utopian causes to support can pour pretty much anything.
A desire to increase state power, soak the rich and expand the welfare state is about all that is left of the original vision. Socialism for young lefties these days means “social justice” and compassion for the poor, not the gulag and the NKVD.
In the end, the one argument that will never wash is that communismcan’t be said to have failed because it was never actually tried. This is a transparent intellectual dodge that ignores the fact that “people’s democracies” were established all over the place in the first three decades after World War II.
Such sophistry is resorted to only because communism in all of those places produced hell on earth rather than heaven.
That the attempts to build communism in a remarkable variety of different geographical regions led to only tyranny and mass bloodshed tells us only that it was never feasible in the first place, and that societies built on the socialist principle ironically suffer from the kind of “inner contradictions” that Marx mistakenly predicted would destroy capitalism.
Yes, all economies are mixed in nature, and one could plausibly argue that the socialist impulse took the rough edges off of capitalism by sponsoring the creation of welfare-state programs that command considerable public support.
But the fact remains that no society in history has been able to achieve sustained prosperity without respect for private property and market forces of supply and demand. Nations, therefore, retain their economic dynamism only to the extent that they resist the temptation to travel too far down the socialist road.
A video important to today. The man was very wise in the ways of God. And of government. Hope you enjoy a good solis teaching from the past. The truth never gets old.
The Roots of the Emergent Church by Francis Schaeffer
How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason)
#02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer
10 Worldview and Truth
Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100
Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR
Professor Bettina F. Aptheker
Published on Nov 7, 2012
Visiting Professor from University of California at Santa Cruz.
Bettina Fay Aptheker (born September 13, 1944) is an American political activist, feminist, professor and author. A former member of the Communist Party USA like her parents, she was active in civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and has worked in developing feminist studies since the late 1970s.
Aptheker was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Fay Philippa Aptheker and Herbert Aptheker, first cousins who had married in Brooklyn. Both parents were political activists; her mother, who had been married before and was 10 years older than her husband, was a union organizer. Her father was a Marxist historian whose first book about slave revolts overturned previous conceptions of enslaved African Americans. He was a major figure in changing the writing of African-American history.[1] She was raised in Brooklyn, New York, where her Jewish parents, children of immigrants, had grown up. Her first job as a teenager was in the home of W.E.B. Du Bois, who was a good friend of her father.
Ten years later, she partially retired from political activism and returned to academia for graduate work. In 1976 she completed her master’s degree in communications at San José State University, and started teaching there.
Cover of Aptheker’s May 1968 pamphlet,Columbia Inc.
Aptheker was a delegate to the June 1964 founding convention of the W.E.B. DuBois Clubs, a Communist Party-sponsored youth organization, held in San Francisco.[2]
She rose in influence to become a member of the governing National Committee of the CPUSA. She was remembered by the California party leader Dorothy Healey in her 1990 memoir as “one of the liveliest of the young people who rose to prominence in the party in the 1960s and also one of the warmest human beings I’ve ever met.”[3]
In 1968, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia divided the 120-member leadership of the CPUSA. All but three of the National Committee, headed by party leader Gus Hall, backed the intervention of Soviet tanks.[4] A meeting of the National Committee held over the Labor Day weekend backed Hall by a margin of five-to-one.[3] Bettina Aptheker denounced the invasion into Czechoslovakian internal affairs, however, and voted with the minority; she opposed her father Herbert Aptheker over this issue.[3] One of the CPUSA’s leading intellectuals, he and a majority of its leaders had defended the Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956.[4]
During the 1970s, Aptheker worked for the defense in the high-profile trial of Angela Davis, a long-time friend and fellow Communist Party member involved in George Jackson‘s attempt to escape from jail. She also wrote a book about the trial, which was published in 1974.[4]
After completing her master’s degree, Aptheker taught African-American and Women’s Studies at San José State University. In the early 1980s, she completed a doctorate in the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Since 1980, she has taught in the Feminist Studies department there.
In 1965 Aptheker married her fellow student Jack Kurzweil, who was also a Communist activist. They divorced in 1978 after having two children together.
Since October 1979, Aptheker has been with Kate Miller, her life partner. They have three children between them (each woman had children in her first marriage). Aptheker is a grandmother.
In her memoir, Intimate Politics, (2006), she wrote about growing up in a leftist household, as what was called a “Red Diaper Baby.” She was strongly influenced in her activism by that of her parents. She also commented on her father’s scholarship. In addition to his commitment to the cause of justice for African Americans, she believed her father celebrated black resistance under slavery as an attempt “to compensate for his deep shame about the way, he believed, the Jews had acted during the Holocaust.”[5]
Her memoir reported that her father had sexually molested her from when she was 3 to age 13. In an opinion column written after her book was reviewed, Aptheker said she had earlier kept silent to shield her family.[6] Memories began to arise in 1999, after her mother’s death and when she began writing the memoir. When her father asked, “Did I ever hurt you as a child?,” she responded “yes” and explained the emotional effects of his treatment. He expressed anguish and sorrow, and they eventually reconciled. With counseling, she found she had suffered dissociation when young, as at the time her family was under great stress during the McCarthy years. Bettina Aptheker stressed her compassion for her father.[6]
Her assertion generated considerable controversy in the academic community because of her father’s stature as a scholar and Communist. Numerous letters were published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, which had reviewed her book, and on the History News Network of George Mason University.[7] Some historians wondered how this news affected people’s perceptions of Herbert Aptheker’s work. Others questioned Bettina Aptheker’s credibility, classing her account in stories of “recovered memory.”[5] The historian Mark Rosenzweig wrote, “the truth about Herbert and Bettina is inaccessible to us.”[8] The historian Jesse Lemisch wrote in his second essay about the controversy, “Shhh! Don’t Talk about Herbert Aptheker”:
“…a general public silence by Old Leftists in response to the report of Herbert Aptheker’s sexual molestation of his daughter Bettina may be writing another chapter in the strange history of American Communism. Fellow Red Diaper Babies and many former Communists seem to want to sweep this under the rug – or, may I say, airbrush it – as if there had never been a Women’s Liberation Movement, and it had never occurred to anybody that there might be a connection between the personal and the political…”[9]
The controversy continued for months. In November 2007, the historian Christopher Phelps published an overview. He included the results of an interview with Kate Miller, who had been present during Aptheker’s 1999 conversation with her father about the abuse, and confirmed her account.[10]
Jump up^Francis X. Gannon, Biographical Dictionary of the Left: Volume II. Boston: Western Islands, 1971; pp. 182-183.
^ Jump up to:abcDorothy Healey and Maurice Isserman, Dorothy Healey Remembers: A Life in the American Communist Party. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990; p. 233.
Episode #121: “You cannot work towards peace being peaceful” says artist Krzystof Wodiczko, who explains this paradoxical position in terms of his personal experiences growing up in Poland under communist rule. Filmed at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Wodiczko’s interview is punctuated by the sound of sirens from outside, the city in a state of “full alert.”
By appropriating public buildings and monuments as backdrops for projections, Krzysztof Wodiczko focuses attention on ways in which architecture and monuments reflect collective memory and history. Projecting images of community members’ hands, faces, or entire bodies onto architectural façades, and combining those images with voiced testimonies, Wodiczko disrupts our traditional understanding of the functions of public space and architecture. He challenges the silent, stark monumentality of buildings, activating them in an examination of notions of human rights, democracy, and truths about the violence, alienation, and inhumanity that underlie countless aspects of social interaction in present-day society.
VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Gary Henoch. Sound: Steve Bores. Editor: Joaquin Perez . Special Thanks : Catherine Tatge, the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
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Krzysztof Wodiczko | Art21 | Preview from Season 3 of “Art in the Twenty-First Century” (2005)
Uploaded on Apr 8, 2008
Krzysztof Wodiczko creates large-scale slide and video projections of politically-charged images on architectural façades and monuments worldwide. By appropriating public buildings and monuments as backdrops for projections, Wodiczko focuses attention on ways in which architecture and monuments reflect collective memory and history.
Krzysztof Wodiczko is featured in the Season 3 episode “Power” of the Art21 series “Art in the Twenty-First Century”.
Krzysztof Wodiczko: Designer Adam Whiton | Art21 “Exclusive”
Uploaded on Jan 7, 2011
Episode #133: Filmed at the Interrogative Design Group offices at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, designer Adam Whiton discusses his work with artist Krzysztof Wodiczko. By developing innovative technology for projects such as “The Tijuana Projection” (2001), “Dis-Armor” (1999-2000), and “AEgis” (2000), Wodiczko and Whiton explore the potential for design to be used in a way that will “get people to think more…trigger questions and make people uncomfortable.”
By appropriating public buildings and monuments as backdrops for projections, Krzysztof Wodiczko focuses attention on ways in which architecture and monuments reflect collective memory and history. Projecting images of community members’ hands, faces, or entire bodies onto architectural façades, and combining those images with voiced testimonies, Wodiczko disrupts our traditional understanding of the functions of public space and architecture. He challenges the silent, stark monumentality of buildings, activating them in an examination of notions of human rights, democracy, and truths about the violence, alienation, and inhumanity that underlie countless aspects of social interaction in present-day society.
VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Gary Henoch. Sound: Steve Bores. Editor: Joaquin Perez??. Artwork Courtesy: Interrogative Design Group & Krzysztof Wodiczko. Special Thanks?: Catherine Tatge, the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). @ 2011, Art21, Inc.
Krzysztof Wodiczko was born in 1943 in Warsaw, Poland, and lives and works in New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1980, he has created more than seventy large-scale slide and video projections of politically charged images on architectural façades and monuments worldwide. By appropriating public buildings and monuments as backdrops for projections, Wodiczko focuses attention on ways in which architecture and monuments reflect collective memory and history. In 1996, he added sound and motion to the projections, and began to collaborate with communities around chosen projection sites—giving voice to the concerns of heretofore marginalized and silent citizens who live in the monuments’ shadows. Projecting images of community members’ hands, faces, or entire bodies onto architectural façades, and combining those images with voiced testimonies, Wodiczko disrupts our traditional understanding of the functions of public space and architecture. He challenges the silent, stark monumentality of buildings, activating them in an examination of notions of human rights, democracy, and truths about the violence, alienation, and inhumanity that underlie countless aspects of social interaction in present-day society. Wodiczko has also developed “instruments” to facilitate survival, communication, and healing for homeless people and immigrants; these therapeutic devices—which Wodiczko envisions as technological prosthetics or tools for empowering and extending human abilities—address physical disability as well as economic hardship, emotional trauma, and psychological distress. Wodiczko heads the Interrogative Design Group, and is Director of the Center for Art, Culture, and Technology, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work has appeared in many international exhibitions, including the Bienal de São Paulo (1965, 1967, 1985); Documenta (1977, 1987); the Venice Biennale (1986, 2000); and the Whitney Biennial (2000). Wodiczko received the 1999 Hiroshima Art Prize for his contribution as an artist to world peace, and the 2004 College Art Association Award for Distinguished Body of Work.
Krzysztof Wodiczko, born April 16, 1943, is an artist renowned for his large-scale slide and video projections on architectural facades and monuments. He has realized more than 80 such public projections in Australia, Austria, Canada, England, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States.
War, conflict, trauma, memory, and communication in the public sphere are some of the major themes of an oeuvre that spans four decades. His practice, known as Interrogative Design, combines art and technology as a critical design practice in order to highlight marginal social communities and add legitimacy to cultural issues that are often given little design attention.[1]
He lives and works in New York City and teaches in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he is currently professor in residence of art and the public Domain for the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). Wodiczko was formerly director of the Interrogative Design Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he was a professor in the Visual Arts Program since 1991. He also teaches as Visiting Professor in the Psychology Department at the Warsaw School of Social Psychology.
Krzysztof Wodiczko, son of Polish orchestra conductor Bohdan Wodiczko,[2] was born in 1943 during the Warsaw ghetto uprising and grew up in post-war, Soviet-occupied, Poland. In 1967 while still a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, he began collaborating with director Jozef Patkowski and the Experimental Studio on sound performances. He graduated in 1968 with an M.F.A. degree in industrial design and worked for the next two years at UNITRA, Warsaw, designing popular electronic products. From 1970 until his emigration to Canada in 1977, he designed professional optical, mechanical, and electronic instruments at the Polish Optical Works.[3]
In 1969, Wodiczko collaborated with Andrzej Dluzniewski and Wojchiech Wybieralski on a design proposal for a memorial to victims of Majdanek concentration camp in Poland. He also performed with Personal Instrument in the streets of Warsaw and participated in the Biennale de Paris as a leader of a group architectural project. He was a teaching assistant for two years, 1969–70, in the Basic Design Program at the Academy of Fine Arts before moving to the Warsaw Polytechnic Institute where he taught until 1976. Throughout the 1970s he continued his collaborations on sound and music performances with various musicians and artists.
In 1971, Wodiczko began work on Vehicle, which he tested the following year on the streets of Warsaw. In 1972 he created his first solo installation: Corridor at Galeria Wspolczesna, Warsaw. The following year he began exhibiting with Galeria Foksal, Warsaw. In 1975, Wodiczko traveled for the first time to the United States where he was artist-in-residence at the University of Illinois, Urbana and exhibited at N.A.M.E. Gallery, Chicago. He participated again in the Biennale de Paris, this time as a solo artist.
In 1976, Wodiczko began a two-year artist-in-residence program at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Canada. He emigrated from Poland in 1977, establishing residency in Canada teaching at the University of Guelph in Ontario, and began working with New York art dealer Hal Bromm. In 1979 he taught at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and continued teaching at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design until 1981. From 1981-1982 he was artist in residence at the South Australian School of Art (currently part of the University of South Australia inAdelaide). In 1983, Wodiczko established residency in New York City teaching at the New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury. The following year, he received Canadian citizenship and in 1986 resident-alien status in the United States. He began teaching at MIT in 1991, maintaining his residence in New York City while working in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Krzysztof Wodiczko began developing his public projections in 1980 interfacing the facades of urban architecture – whether public monuments, public buildings, or corporate architecture – with images of the body to juxtapose the physical space of architecture with the psycho-social space of the public realm. “In the process of our socialization,” the artist writes, “the very first contact with a public building is no less important than the moment of social confrontation with the father, through which our sexual role and place in society [are] constructed. Early socialization through patriarchal sexual discipline is extended by the later socialization through the institutional architecturalization of our bodies. Thus the spirit of the father never dies, continuously living as it does in the building which was, is, and will be embodying, structuring, mastering, representing, and reproducing his ‘eternal’ and ‘universal’ presence as a patriarchal wisdom-body of power.”[4]
In an often cited example, Wodiczko projected an image of the hand of Ronald Reagan, in formal dress shirt with cufflinks, posed in the pledge of allegiance, onto the north face of the AT&T Long Lines Building in the financial district of New York City four days before the presidential election of 1984. “By creating a spectacle in which a fragment of the governing body, the presidential hand, was asked to stand for corporate business,” writes Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, “Wodiczko offered a suggestion about the class identity of those forces that – hidden under the guise of God, State, and Nation – are the actual receivers of the pledge of allegiance.”[5] In subsequent projections, the artist layered iconic representations of global capitalism, militarism, and consumerism with images of fragments of the body to suggest a consideration of our relation to public space that is contingent both to history and social and political ideologies of the present.
Art historian Patricia C. Phillips writes of the artist’s work: “In his public projects of the past decade, Krzysztof Wodiczko has conducted a series of active mediations that combine significant public sites, tough subjects, and aggressive statements that are only possible because of their temporality. He applies the immediate force of performance to social and political problems. The rhythms of extenuating events and the brevity of each installation give his projected episodes the intensity of public, political demonstrations. His thoroughly staged, illuminated images often require months of preparation, yet they seem like surprise attacks – fiercely focused parasitic invasions of renowned institutional hosts.”[6]
Perhaps the best-known and most popular intervention of this nature was performed when the artist created a projection for Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square, London in 1985. The South African government was at that time petitioning the British government for financial support. Wodiczko turned one of his projectors away from Nelson’s column projecting a swastika onto the tympanum of the temple-like façade of South Africa House, the South African diplomatic mission to the United Kingdom. Though the image remained only two hours before the police suspended the intervention as a “public nuisance” it lingered in public awareness much longer.[7] It is frequently cited at conferences, in classroom discussions, and other forum as an example of successful urban guerrilla cultural tactics – that is, art and/or performance that is waged by unexpected means for the purpose of engaging an active response.
Tijuana Projection, 2001. Public video projection at the Centro Cultural Tijuana, Mexico. Organized as part of the event InSite 2000.
In explaining the potential of cultural projects in the public sphere, the artist writes: “I try to understand what is happening in the city, how the city can operate as a communicative environment… It is important to understand the circumstances under which communication is reduced or destroyed, and under what possible new conditions it can be provoked to reappear. How can aesthetic practice in the built environment contribute to critical discourse between the inhabitants themselves and the environment? How can aesthetic practice make existing symbolic structures respond to contemporary events?”[8] For Wodiczko, disrupting the complacency of perception is imperative for passersby to stop, reflect, and perhaps even change their thinking; so he built his visual repertoire to evoke both the historical past and the political present.
In this way, Wodiczko’s visual repertoire for his projections expanded beyond the body (ears, eyes, and hands as indicators of human sensibility) to include chains, missiles, tanks, coins, cameras, boots, swastikas, guns, candles, food baskets, and corporate logos. “In these projections,” writes Kathleen MacQueen, “the artist alternates between symbolic, iconic, and indexical images – the principal relations an image can have to its subject, according to the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce – that is, predicated on a cultural reference, a physical resemblance, or a physical relation respectively. In many instances they scramble all relations: the hand, an index of the body – someone’s body – is also an iconic representation of communication that might symbolically represent an open or closed ideological position.” The reductive, visual signs monumentally-sized to fit the facades on which they are projected, are not meant to read as logos for a political agenda, instead they suggest a perceptual contradiction to disrupt the kind of assumptions that beset the casual passerby.[9]
Wodiczko’s visual interventions into public space are intended to alter what Jacques Rancière would later term the realm of the sensible.[10] When the public views its urban monuments with sidelong glances out of the corners of its eyes, it accepts the monuments as natural and uncoded. By intercepting vision with projections, Wodiczko replaces an unconsidered reception with a critical one.[11] This is the lesson of the Russian Formalists, of Bertolt Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt and of Friedrich Nietzche’s understanding of Goethe’s belief that knowledge must quicken activity rather than lead to complacence.[12]
The artist began to integrate direct activism into his projects in the late 1980s with his vehicles and his instruments, articles of design that would act as band-aids – not only healing social wounds but perhaps more importantly calling attention to them.
While the artist had produced his first vehicle in Poland with additional conceptual versions designed when he lived in Canada, it was with his Homeless Vehicle Project of 1987-89, that he redirected “attention from the work of art as dissent to the work of art as social action: in this case, the discussions and design collaboration with members of the homeless community to develop both a physical object and a conceptual design that would make their participation in the urban economy visible and self-directed.”[13] The Homeless Vehicle Project was both symbolic and useful: the artist’s first work to use a collective process to legitimize the problems of a marginal community “without legitimating the crisis of homelessness.”[14] While the public was cautious, the operators of the vehicles took the project seriously. According to Wodiczko, “You see this in certain gestures, certain ways of behaving, speaking, dialoguing, of building up stories, narratives: the homeless become actors, orators, workers, all things which they usually are not. The idea is to let them speak and tell their own stories, to let them be legitimate actors on the urban stage.”[15] The attention to testimony as a transformative process while still tentative in theHomeless Vehicle Project became a significant performative process in the artist’s Instruments and eventually part of the his projections as well.[16]
Wodiczko created Poliscar in 1991 as a kind of “command center” for communication and community activism – a vehicle equipped with first-aid supplies, video and radio transmission equipment, and tools for everyday survival, it could support legal, medical, and social crisis aid, the mobile units ranging from three to ten miles from a base station. Poliscar was a technological design for the disenfranchised public of the polis or public sphere. Later Wodiczko would merge his vehicles with his projections when working with war veterans (see “Recent Work”).
Krzysztof Wodiczko created the Personal Instrument in 1969, his first conceptual design work taken into the public sphere. Though he had a degree in industrial design and created popular electronics for a Polish manufacturer, his design philosophy was influenced by Russian constructivism epitomized by the poet/artist Vladimir Mayakovsky’s statement, “the streets our brushes, the squares our palettes.” ‘‘The Personal Instrument’’ consisted of a microphone, worn on the forehead, which retrieved sound while photo-receivers in gloves isolated and filtered the sound through the movement of the hand, which was then perceived discriminately by the artist, perceptually confined by the sound-proof headphones. By emphasizing selective listening, vital (under authoritarian restrictions) to a Polish citizen’s survival, Wodiczko intimated the prevalence of censored speech, registering “dissent of a system that fostered only one-directional critical thinking – listening over speech.”[17]
After his work with the homeless community in New York City and Philadelphia, Wodiczko returned to the possibilities of smaller, personal instruments as conceptual and functional objects to offset the problems of communication for urban migrants. Initially based on the iconic staff of the wandering prophet, the Alien Staff (1992 and its variant, 1992/93) was designed to mediate conversation between aliens (the juridical term designating all immigrants whether of legal or illegal status) and the franchised population of an urban environment. The staff not only presented an object of curiosity to passersby, causing them to interrupt their pace long enough to ask questions, it also became a repository of narrative recording and objects both sacred or necessary (e.g., green cards or family mementoes) to the lives of the immigrants. Influenced by Julia Kristeva’s Strangers to Ourselves (1991), Wodiczko developed new equipment in 1993 that focused even more directly on democratic speech rights for the performative stranger. Mouthpiece (Porte-parole) was intended to act as a protective zone so that the immigrant could expand her narrative outward into a collective experience thereby pulling her out of isolation. The video technology, to be worn over the mouth, makes strange the familiar thereby creating a point of entry for passersby to enter into conversation with the immigrant. Between 1993 and 1997, thirteen culturally displaced persons used variants of the Mouthpiece in Paris, Malmö, Helsinki, Warsaw, Amsterdam, Trélazé, and Angers.
…OUT OF HERE: The Veterans Project, 2009–2011. Seven-channel color video with sound. Installation view, Galerie Lelong, New York, 2011.
While working on Porte-parole in Europe, Wodiczko received an invitation from the filmmaker Andrzej Wajda to participate in an urban festival in Krakow using for the first time powerful Barco NVvideo projectors. Working with the Women’s Center, he merged for the first time the testimonial work that had evolved from his work with instruments with the visual impact of his well-known large-scale public projections. Testimony of domestic abuse spoken from the City Hall Tower created shockwaves in an overwhelmingly Catholic culture of denial.
In this way, Wodiczko continued in his testimonial video projections to respond to the needs of urban society’s marginal citizens who frequently survive outside the usual boundaries of juridical and social resources. In 2001, he merged the means of his instruments with the purpose of the projections in his Tijuana Projection executed for InSite 2000. In this public intervention, women working in the “maquiladora” industry of Tijuana, Mexico wore media technology designed to project their faces onto El Centro Cultural as they spoke emotionally of incest, police abuse, and work place discrimination in real time. As participants, their parrhesiatic speech was courageously offered at great risk to themselves for the purpose of moral and political change. Through the video projections, Wodiczko continues to develop the potential for aesthetic practice to effect social change as part of a wider discourse on agonistic pluralism prompted by such influences as Chantal Mouffe and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
The role of art in understanding and confronting conflict becomes an increasingly significant aspect of both Wodiczko’s aesthetic and pedagogical practices. This is true in his continued work with immigrants and his recent work with war veterans in the Veteran Vehicle Project as well as his public lectures and teaching seminars worldwide including his seminar on “Trauma, Conflict, and Art” for the Warsaw School of Social Psychology. Recently, Wodiczko has also created projections for the interiors of cultural spaces as a metaphor for our psychological isolation from broader social and political experience. His 2005 exhibition at Galerie Lelong in New York City, If you see something…, his 2009 installation in the Polish Pavilion for the 53rd Venice Biennale, Guests, position the viewer in relation to the consequences of global capitalism and the conflict produced as a result of the inequitable distribution of resources and opportunities. Krzysztof Wodiczko believes in the necessity for intellectuals to participate actively in society forging, as critic Jan Avgikos points out, “a commitment to resistance and truth-telling that, while often derided as outmoded or impossible, remains a basic human impulse.”[18]
In 2009, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston exhibited …Out of Here: The Veterans Project. The multimedia installation, which ran from November 4, 2009, to March 28, 2010, filled a dark and empty museum gallery with recorded voices and explosions, along with flashes of light, simulating the experience of a mortar attack in Iraq. On three walls of the gallery, projectors cast two horizontal rows of windows, creating the illusion that viewers were inside a darkened warehouse. The eight-minute audio track started with the bustle of traffic and citizens in an Iraqi city, brought in children’s laughter, and subtly overlapped an excerpt from an Al Jazeera broadcast of President Obama speaking about the need to endure in Iraq. Listeners also noted an Islamic call to prayer, forebodingly drowned out by the approach of a helicopter. Without much warning, soldiers began yelling and shooting. When the gunfire ceased, a mother was heard wailing, and the episode ended in ominous silence (voices recorded for Out of Here belonged to a mixture of Iraqi-Americans, United States soldiers, and actors).[19]
In the process of creating Out of Here, Wodiczko opted to expand the dictionary definition of veteran. Traditionally, the term is described as “a person who has served in a military force.”[20] Wodiczko has redefined veteran to include anyone who has lived in an area where war was fought at the time they lived there, for example, residents of Iraq from 2003-2011, or residents of Germany, England, France, etc. during World War II. The Iraqi-born civilians (veterans, by the artist’s definition) who contributed to Out of Here, including the woman who lent her voice to the audio track, offered a perspective altogether different from those of the American military who had been in Iraq. This careful manipulation of the term foreshadows the artist’s choice to insert his own thoughts in Out of Here, in addition to culling the testimonies of soldiers and Iraqis. Having lived through World War II in Poland and served in the Polish military during the cold war, Wodiczko is not merely working with veterans; he is one. The artist fulfills both old and new definitions of the word veteran.
One year later, Out of Here was shown at Galerie Lelong in New York City. This second iteration contained an excerpt from a different speech by the President, and mentioned the end of the war and the gradual withdrawal of troops. Speaking on the changes, the artist commented, “It made the work more up to date…but the irony is that this project didn’t have to change much.”[21] Wodiczko cited the locations, Boston and New York, as sufficient to garner different readings of the work. “The works in Boston and New York have different publics. New York’s character and the [art] shows gave Out of Here a big international audience as opposed to the more local audience in Boston.”[22] Collectively, these narratives paint a picture of the individual veterans who told them, the larger picture of the Iraq War, and the more subtle clues to the war’s repercussions.[23]
Jump up^ Douglas Crimp, Rosalyn Deutsche, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, Krzysztof Wodiczko, “A Conversation with Krzyzstof Wodiczko” inOctober 38 (Autumn 1986): 36.
Jump up^ “Biography” in Krzysztof Wodiczko, Wodiczko (De Appel Amsterdam, 1996), 76. (Most biographical information for “Early life” comes from the biographical data in this catalog.)
Jump up^ Krzysztof Wodiczko, “Public Projections,” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 7 (Winter-Spring, 1983) quoted in Krzysztof Wodiczko, Public Address (Minneapolis: The Walker Art Center, 1992), 89.
Jump up^ Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, “Understanding Wodiczko,” Counter-Monuments: Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Public Projections(Cambridge, MA: Hayden Gallery, List Visual Arts Center, MIT, 1987).
Jump up^ Patricia C. Phillips, “Images of Repossession,” Public Address, 44.
Jump up^ Krzysztof Wodiczko, “Projections,” Perspecta 26, Theatre, Theatricality, and Architecture (1990): 273.
Jump up^ Kathleen MacQueen, Tactical Response: Art in an Age of Terror (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Publishers, 2010), 89-90.
Jump up^ Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics (2000), trans. Gabriel Rockhill (London and New York: Continuum, 2004).
Jump up^ MacQueen, Tactical Response, 91 and Krzysztof Wodiczko, “Designing for a City of Strangers” (1997) in Critical Vehicles: Writings, Projects and Interviews (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999), 4-15.
Jump up^ Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, trans. Peter Preuss (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1980).
Jump up^ Jan Avgikos, “Kryzysztof Wodiczko: Galerie Lelong.” In Artforum International (December 1, 2005), 278.
Jump up^ Blake J. Ruehrwein, “Wodiczko’s Veterans: Artist, Institution, and Audience in …Out of Here: The Veterans Project,” M.A. Thesis, City College of New York, Dec 2012.
Jump up^ The American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed., s.v. “Veteran.”
Jump up^ Krzysztof Wodiczko, interview by Blake Ruehrwein, April 29, 2011.
Jump up^ Blake J. Ruehrwein, “Wodiczko’s Veterans: Artist, Institution, and Audience in …Out of Here: The Veterans Project,” M.A. Thesis, City College of New York, Dec 2012.
Selected publications, essays, and interviews by the artist[edit]
2009, City of Refuge: A 9/11 Memorial. Edited by Mark Jarzombek and Mechtild Widrich. London: Black Dog Publishing.
2009, “Designing for a City of Strangers” in The Design Culture Reader, edited by Ben Highmore, Routledge.
2008, “Questionnaire: Krzysztof Wodiczko.” October 123, “In what ways have artists, academics, and cultural institutions responded to the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq?” (Winter 2008): 172-179.
2003, “Creating Democracy: A Dialogue with Krzysztof Wodiczko” by Patricia C. Phillips in Art Journal 64, no. 4 (Winter 2003): 33-47.
2002, “Instruments Projections Monuments” in AA Files 43: 31-41.
1999, Critical Vehicles: Writings, Projects and Interviews. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999.
1997, “Alien Staff, Krzysztof Wodiczko in Conversation with Bruce Robbins.” In Veiled Histories: The Body, Place, and Public Art. Edited by Anna Novakov. New York: San Francisco Art Institute and Critical Press, 1997.
1990, “Projections.” Perspecta 26, Theater, Theatricality, and Architecture (1990): 273-287.
1988, “Conversations about a project for a homeless vehicle.” October 47 (Winter 1988): 68-76.
1986, “Conversation with Krzysztof Wodiczko.” With Douglas Crimp, Rosalyn Deutsche and Ewa Lajer-Burcharth. October 38 (Winter 1986): 22-51.
1986, “Krzysztof Wodiczko: Public Projections.” October 38 (1986): 3-22.
2009, Guests/Goscie. With John Rajchman, Bozena Czubak, and Ewa Lajer-Burcharth. Milan and New York: Charta.
2005, Krzysztof Wodiczko: Projekcje Publiczne, Public Projections 1996-2004. With contributions by Anna Smolak, Malgorzata Gadomska, Dariusz Dolinski, et al., The Bunker Sztuki Contemporary Art Gallery, Kraków.
1998, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art, July–September.
1995, Krzysztof Wodiczko: Projects and Public Projections 1969-1995, De Appel Foundation.
1995, Sztuka Publiczna, Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw.
1994, Art public, art critique, Paris.
1992, Public Address: Krzysztof Wodiczko, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
1991, The Homeless Vehicle Project. With David Lurie, edited by Kyoichi Tsuzuki, Kyoto Shoin.
1990, Krzysztof Wodiczko: New York City Tableau, Tompkins Square, The Homeless Vehicle Project, Exit Art, New York City.
1987, Counter-Monuments: Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Public Projections with Katy Kline and Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, List Visual Arts Center.
2012, Blake J. Ruehrwein, “Wodiczko’s Veterans: Artist, Institution, and Audience in …Out of Here: The Veterans Project,” M.A. Thesis, City College of New York, Dec 2012.
2009, Eva Marxen, “Therapeutic Thinking in Contemporary Art or Psychotherapy in the Arts” in The Arts in Psychotherapy 36: 131-139.
2008-09, Ewa Lajer-Burchardt, “Interiors at Risk: Precarious Spaces in Contemporary Art” in Harvard Design Magazine 29 (Fall-Winter 2008-09)
2008, Dora Apel, “Technologies of War, Media, and Dissent in the Post 9/11 Work of Krzysztof Wodiczko” in Oxford Art Journal 31, no. 2 (June 2008): 261-280.
2008, Rosalyn Deutsche, “The Art of Witness in the Wartime Public Sphere” in Forum Permanente, transcript of the Tate Modern lecture, March 4, 2005.
2007, Tom Williams, “Architecture and Artifice in the Recent Work of Krzysztof Wodiczko” in Shifting Borders, edited by Reid W.F. Cooper, Luke Nicholson, and Jean-François Bélisle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
2006-7, Lisa Saltzman, “When Memory Speaks: A Monument Bears Witness” in Trauma and Visuality in Modernity, edited by Lisa Saltzman and Eric Rosenberg, University Press of New England and in Making Memory Matter: Strategies of Remembrance in Contemporary Art, The University of Chicago Press.
2006, Mark Jarzombek, “The Post-traumatic Turn and the Art of Walid Ra’ad and Krzystof Wodiczko: from Theory to Trope and Beyond” in Trauma and Visuality in Modernity, ed. Saltzman and Rosenberg.
2005, James Leger, “Xenology and identity in critical public art: Krzysztof Wodiczko’s immigrant instruments.” Parachute, July 28, 2005.
2002, Andrzej Turowski, “Krzysztof Wodiczko and Polish Art of the 1970s” in Primary Documents: A Sourcebook for Eastern and Central European Art Since the 1950s, The Museum of Modern Art.
2002, Rosalyn Deutsche, “Sharing Strangeness: Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Aegis and the Question of Hospitality” in Grey Room 6 (Winter 2002): 26-43.
1998, Rosalyn Deutsche, Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics, The MIT Press.
1993, Denis Hollier. “While the City Sleeps: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin’” in October 64 (Spring 1993).
1989, Patricia C. Philips, “Temporality and Public Art.” Art Journal 48, no. 4 (Winter 1989): 331-335.
1987, Ewa Lajer-Burchardt, “Urban Disturbances.” Art in America (November 1987): 146-153, 197.
1986, Rosalyn Deutsche, “Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Homeless Projection and the Site of ‘Urban Revitalization.” October 38 (Fall 1986): 63-99.
BUniverse – “Art, Trauma, and Democracy: Immigrants and Veterans” – Krzysztof Wodickzo shares several short videos depicting immigrants and their feelings about living in a land that is not their own, Institute for Human Sciences, Boston University, December 3, 2009,http://www.bu.edu/buniverse/view/?v=1lV8st9M.
The trend is to deny scientific reality in favor of the new wave of gender ideology. Doctors and athletes have good reason to be worried. Pictured: Lia Thomas finishes first in the women’s 200-yard freestyle Jan. 22 for the University of Pennsylvania in a swim meet against Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Photo: Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images)
Rachel Csutoros is legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom.
From kindergarten classrooms to human resources offices to elite academic institutions, pressure is growing for Americans to ignore what’s in front of them in favor of a new version of reality that is more “inclusive” and “updated.”
Public discourse now centers on debates about whether men can become pregnant and how to define a woman. The trend is to deny scientific reality in favor of the new wave of gender ideology.
The Biden administration has taken up the torch of this ideology by trying to redefine the word “sex” to include “gender identity” in various federal statutes, including the Affordable Care Act and Title IX, causing catastrophic effects for many groups, not the least of whom are medical professionals and female athletes.
Some doctors in Texas, though, are fighting the Biden administration in court, trying to stop this reinterpretation of “sex” in the Affordable Care Act that would force them to perform harmful medical procedures on patients seeking to alter their biological sex.
Because the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, draws some of its vital language by incorporating Title IX, the law that regulates school athletics and bans discrimination “on the basis of sex,” it necessarily affects Title IX and female athletics. That, in turn, led a group of female athletes to file a brief in support of the doctors’ case opposing the Biden administration’s attempt to redefine sex in federal law.
Doctors and female athletes have good reason to be worried.
Reinterpreting “sex” in these federal statutes would erode the basic biology that forms the foundation for science and medicine. For instance, forcing doctors to pretend that a patient cannot have prostate cancer because the patient identifies as a female will put health care professionals in an impossible situation.
And remember, this is not about ensuring access to particular procedures—some doctors do that willingly. This is about the Biden administration’s forcing doctors to get in line with an extreme political agenda, even if it means violating their conscience and forsaking their medical judgment.
And, as many now know, gender ideology also is changing the landscape of women’s sports. In 1972, Congress created Title IX to provide equal opportunities for women in education. Title IX then paved the way for women to have their own sports teams, and the next 50 years led to generations of women holding their own in sports competition.
College athlete Maddie Dichiara is one such woman who has benefited from Title IX. She has joined the growing chorus of female athletes who are concerned that the Biden administration is threatening the very existence of women’s sports.
Dichiara plays soccer for the University of Houston on a full scholarship. But the recent shift to include gender identity in the definition of “sex” already has begun to threaten the benefits that Maddie and thousands of other women enjoy.
The devastating consequence of allowing men to compete in women’s sports was probably most strikingly visible when University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas handily won the women’s 500-yard freestyle at the NCAA Division I Championships.
Thomas, who used to swim for a male team, beat two former Olympians in the same race. Some observers said Thomas hardly tried. But the women in the pool knew they were racing for second place.
Chelsea Mitchell, a Connecticut high school track standout, faced a similar situation when she was forced to compete against two males. Mitchell was one of the fastest women in the state and secured eight state championships. She would have won 12, if not for the males who breezed by her to come in first place.
It’s personal for Mitchell and Dichiara, who both joined the legal effort to support the doctors’ case in Texas. Allowing males to compete in women’s sports strips women of the opportunity to be champions.
This harmful gender narrative doesn’t affect only doctors and athletes, though. It endangers private female spaces. Once New Jersey agreed to house inmates according to how they identify, a male who identified as female impregnated two female inmates.
Or take homeless shelters that house women who have escaped from sex trafficking or have been abused by men. Redefining “sex” and allowing men to access a delicate, women’s-only space can endanger women mentally and physically. That threat almost materialized in Anchorage, Alaska, but for legal action by Alliance Defending Freedom.
Until a few years ago, everyone could agree on at least a few basic truths. Now, Americans are being told to ignore reality and the basic biological differences between males and females.
The Biden administration’s radical gender ideology agenda will endanger medical professionals, destroy women’s opportunities, and silence opposing viewpoints. Thankfully, female athletes such as Maddie Dichiara and Chelsea Mitchell are taking the lead to return us to the reality that this administration won’t acknowledge.
The Republican-controlled legislature in Kentuckyvoted Wednesday to override Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of legislation that would prohibit transgender athletes from competing in sex-segregated sporting events from sixth grade through college.
The expected move came after Beshear refused to sign Senate Bill 83 last week and claimed it was most likely unconstitutional. He said the legislation “discriminates against transgender people” and therefore would not hold up in court.
Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky on July 29, 2019. (Photo By Raymond Boyd/Getty Images)
The measure is now law in the state after the Republicans overrode the veto of the legislation, which originally passed through the state House with a 70 to 23 vote and the state Senate with a 26 to 9 vote.
Under the new law, a student’s gender will be determined by the “biological sex” indicated on the student’s certified birth certificate “as originally issued at the time of birth or adoption.” This means individuals who transitioned to female later in life could not participate on sports teams designated female in the state.
Republican Sen. Robby Mills, the bill’s lead sponsor, has said the measure would ensure girls and women compete against other “biological females.”
Andy Beshear, governor of Kentucky, speaks during a news conference in Frankfort, Kentucky, U.S., on Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022. (Jon Cherry/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Mills has said the bill reflects concerns from parents across the Bluegrass State. He said it “thinks ahead” to prevent situations where girls or women are unfairly competing against biological males.
“It would be crushing for a young lady to train her whole career to have it end up competing against a biological male in the state tournament or state finals,” Mills said during a previous debate on the bill.
In vetoing the measure, Beshear said its backers had failed to present a “single instance” in Kentucky of someone gaining a competitive advantage as a result of a “sex reassignment.”
A car is seen at driving by the Capitol Building on January 16, 2021 in Frankfort, Kentucky. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
“Transgender children deserve public officials’ efforts to demonstrate that they are valued members of our communities through compassion, kindness and empathy, even if not understanding,” the governor wrote.
The measure also faced criticism from others in the state.
“This bill is a solution in search of a non-existent problem,” said Samuel Crankshaw, a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky. “It is rooted in hate and unconstitutional.”
Fox News’ Timothy H.J. Nerozzi and The Associated Press contributed to this article.
A Proclamation on Transgender Day Of Visibility, 2022
In the past year, hundreds of anti-transgender bills in States were proposed across America, most of them targeting transgender kids. The onslaught has continued this year. These bills are wrong. Efforts to criminalize supportive medical care for transgender kids, to ban transgender children from playing sports, and to outlaw discussing LGBTQI+ people in schools undermine their humanity and corrode our Nation’s values. Studies have shown that these political attacks are damaging to the mental health and well-being of transgender youth, putting children and their families at greater risk of bullying and discrimination.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor, a contributing editor with National Review Online, and a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research.
“Identifying” as someone who one is not has become all the rage. If you think you’re somebody you’re not, the whole world is expected to nod its collective head, if not stand up and cheer.
This is especially true for gender identity, as William “Lia” Thomas has demonstrated so vividly in collegiate swimming pools. Unheralded male swimmer William Thomas became NCAA champion female swimmer Lia Thomas—Shazam!—just by saying so.
What a cool magic trick.
Gone are the days when a guy had to put some skin in the game to pull this off. Or, more accurately, pull something off to get some skin out of the game; namely, his penis. The old carving-station requirement for gender transition has gone the way of the rotary telephone. Today, mere affirmations will suffice.
“Hey, I’m a girl!” And you are.
As Yogi Berra might say, if he were alive and not in shock: “Only in America.”
Since simple declarations of identity can change people more swiftly than scalpels, what’s next after the triumph of transgenderism?
Why not transnationalism?
Visualize Lupita Martinez. She lives in poverty in Honduras. The mean streets of Tegucigalpa keep her at wits’ end. A crime surge on public transportation is the last macaw that breaks the branch of her patience.
So, Martinez joins a caravan and heads north, to the U.S.-Mexican frontier.
When she comes face to face with a Border Patrol agent, Martinez says the magic words: “I identify as an American.”
“Welcome home, Lupita!” the federal agent says with a warm smile, as he waves this Honduran American citizen back where she belongs.
And why not transracialism?
Picture Ludwig Von Thannhausen, age 18. He lives in suburban Chicago with his native German parents who brought him to America as a baby. He has blond hair, blue eyes, and looks like a young man born in Oberpfaffenhofen who also happens to be white.
But Von Thannhausen can’t get enough of things black.
He is obsessed with the Harlem Renaissance. He knows the literature of Langston Hughes better than Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the paintings of Aaron Douglas more than Max Ernst, and the music of Duke Ellington deeper than Richard Wagner.
His heroes stretch from Frederick Douglass to the Tuskegee Airmen to Denzel Washington. He listens to everything from Motown to Parliament Funkadelic to Prince to Kanye West.
He dreams of majoring in black studies at Howard University in Washington, D.C., a historically black college. In fact, he’s applying as a black student and seeks scholarships intended for black applicants.
Von Thannhausen resembles a recruit for the Aryan Nation, but he said the secret words: “I identify as black.”
Who are we to disagree? If that’s his identity, that’s his identity.
And if his good grades, decent SAT scores, and impressive baseball record land him a spot at Howard, plus a $50,000 minority scholarship, then who are we to say that he is not really black?
But what would we say to the kid who actually is black (you know: dark skin, dark hair, etc.), applies to Howard, and misses out on admission, a scholarship, or both? If not for Von Thannhausen, those blessings would be hers.
Why not transindividualism?
Imagine that Bob Glenwood has multiple-personality disorder. He identifies as Bob Glenwood, but also as Steve Jones, Myron Shapiro, Jackie Washington, and Concepcion Gomez.
So, he fills out five voter registration applications and requests five absentee ballots.
Who are we to say that Glenwood deserves just one ballot? How dare we disenfranchise the other four people who live inside his brain? That would be Jim Crow 3.0.
As these (for now) fictional scenarios show, America will plunge into ever deeper chaos if we simply let people “identify” as those they are not and then deprive others of goods and benefits meant for people who legitimately embody those identities.
I identify as Walter Cronkite, and that’s the way it is.
The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
Female swimmers (from left) Emma Weyant, Erica Sullivan, and Brooke Forde place behind Lia Thomas (left), the biologically male transgender swimmer who won the NCAA Division 1 women’s 500-yard freestyle on Thursday. (Photo: Justin Casterline/Getty Images)
Concerned Women for America filed a formal civil rights complaint against the University of Pennsylvania on Thursday, contending the school is violating Title IX requirements designed to protect the rights of female student athletes.
The complaint came the same day transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, a biological male, won the 500-yard freestyle at the NCAA’s Division 1 Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships in Atlanta. Thomas is set to compete in the 100-yard and 200-yard freestyles today and tomorrow.
Thomas, who had previously competed on the men’s team, has been dominating women’s competitions and shattering records since switching to the women’s team in 2020.
“Thomas is anatomically and biologically a male with physical capacities that are different from anatomically and biologically female athletes, which extends an unfair advantage and strips female student athletes of opportunities afforded to them by law,” according to a statement from Concerned Women for America, a Christian conservative public policy organization.
The complaint cites federal Title IX requirements for schools to provide equal educational opportunities, including in athletics, to receive federal funding.
“The future of women’s sports is at risk, and the equal rights of female athletes are being infringed,” said Penny Nance, CEO and president of Concerned Women for America. “Any school that defies federal civil rights law by denying women equal opportunities in athletic programs, forcing women to compete against athletes who are biologically male, must be held accountable.”
Jay Richards, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, expressed support for Concerned Women for America’s complaint against the University of Pennsylvania. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
“The case of Lia (formerly Will) Thomas at the University of Pennsylvania is a highly visible example of how gender ideology is already wreaking havoc in our schools,” Richards said. “And it’s clearly a violation of the spirit and letter of Title IX. I just hope that courts have the courage to recognize that. If justice is to be served, then CWA should prevail.”
Before I show the clip from AFTER LIFE let me show you how inconsistent humanists can be with this article below. Humanist claim to be the biggest supporters of women’s rights!!
Last week, the American Humanist Association (AHA) stripped British author Richard Dawkins of his 1996 Humanist of the Year award after he made a comment on Twitter that offended some in the transgender community.
“Regrettably, Richard Dawkins has over the past several years accumulated a history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalized groups, an approach antithetical to humanist values,” said the AHA. “His latest statement implies that the identities of transgender individuals are fraudulent, while also simultaneously attacking Black identity as one that can be assumed when convenient.”
This is nonsense: Dawkins had raised a point that it is perfectly worthy of discussion, in accordance with the rationalist philosophy of the humanist movement. But it would also have been ridiculous for the organization to punish Dawkins even if the remark had been offensive, given that many of its past awardees have espoused controversial views, and even said insensitive things on Twitter.
Here was Dawkins’ tweet, which concerned Rachel Dolezal, a chapter president of the NAACP who engendered controversy for identifying as black even though she was a white woman:
If it’s disqualifying to express confusion about progressives’ simultaneous embrace of transgender people and vehement rejection of transracial people, I suppose that I will never win a Humanist of the Year award. I wrote the following in my 2019 book, Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump:
If we accept, as many on the left do, that people can identify as female even though they were born male, why is it unthinkable for people to identify as black when they were born white? How can the left embrace transgender people without even considering the possibility that there could be transracial people? (Race, after all, is more obviously socially constructed than gender. While our conception of gender is at least partly based on biologicaldifferences between the sexes, the same is not true for race.)
The point is not to demean transgender people, but to question why people like Dolezal instantly warranted pariah status. Dawkins subsequently clarified that it was not his intention “to ally in any way with Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue.”
But according to the AHA, this clarification evinced “neither sensitivity nor sincerity.” Dawkins’ name is no longer listed on the website’s awardees page.
Perusing this page reveals something interesting: There are far more controversial past winners than Dawkins. The AHA gave Humanist of the Year awards to the author and activist Alice Walker—who promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories—and also to Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood who promoted eugenics and white supremacy. Sanger’s legacy is so complicated that her own organization is currently disowning her.
The AHA has also given lesser awards to several individuals with a history of provocative statements and bad tweets: Jessica Valenti, Cenk Uygur, and others. To be clear, the AHA is within its rights to give or rescind awards to anyone it wishes, for any reason. But people who support the organization’s mission have the same right to criticize it for hypocrisy.
Two such critics are Rebecca Goldstein and Steven Pinker, who won the Humanist of the Year award in 2011 and 2006, respectively. Goldstein and Pinker wrote an open letter to the AHA calling on it to reverse course:
Dawkins did not call for discrimination against or marginalization of any individual or group. And he explicitly denied any intention to disparage anyone or to lend support to transphobic or racist political movements. Now, it would still be completely appropriate for those of you who objected to the substance of his tweets to criticize them in The Humanist or other forums, explaining the nature of their objections. But to seek to punish, dishonor, or humiliate a writer rather than engage with his words is a betrayal of humanism.
The Humanist Manifesto III declares that “the lifestance of humanism [is] guided by reason.” Since no one is infallible, reason requires that a diverse range of ideas be expressed and debated openly, including ones that some people find unfamiliar or uncomfortable. To demonize a writer rather than address the writer’s arguments is a confession that one has no rational response to them.
This illiberal response is all the more damaging to an organization that claims to repudiate the repressive practices of religion. It has not been lost on commentators that an association of “freethinkers” has deemed certain thoughts unthinkable, nor that it is enforcing dogmas and catechisms by excommunicating a heretic. The AHA is turning itself into a laughingstock.
Goldstein and Pinker are quite right. The AHA’s own values require tolerance of difficult conversations around public policy subjects, rather than a knee-jerk drive to punish dissenters from orthodoxies.
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After Life #1 Trailer
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I listened tothis question and answer session at Harvard in 1992 on cassette tapes and was captivated with Ravi Zacharias. His responses were so much better than Kath’s responses to Tony in AFTER LIFE. I have referenced work by Ravi many times in the past and Especially moving was Ravi’s own spiritual search which started in a hospital bed after a failed suicide attempt.I also want you to check out his talk at Princeton and the question and answer time afterwards which are both on YOU TUBEat these two links: Link for talk, Link for Q/A.
After Life 2 Trailer
On Saturday April 18, 2020 at 6pm in London and noon in Arkansas, I had a chance to ask Ricky Gervais a question on his Twitter Live broadcast which was “Is Tony a Nihilist?” At the 20:51 mark Ricky answers my question. Below is the video:
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If Death is the end then what is the point Kath asks below:
Adrian Rogers (September 12, 1931 – November 15, 2005)
Charles Darwin Autobiography
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Francis Schaeffer “The Age of NONREASON”
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(Above) Tony and Anne on the bench at the graveyard where their spouses are buried.
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July 9, 2020 Ricky Gervais
Dear Ricky,
This is the 83rd day in a row that I have written another open letter to you to comment on some of your episodes of AFTER LIFE, and then I wanted to pass along some evidence that indicates the Bible is historically accurate from Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop Book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?
In the 6th episode of the second season of AFTERLIFE Tony and Lenny interview a 50 year old person who pretends to be a 8 year old little girl when everyone in his family knows this person has been around for 50 years.
Just pretending something is true does not make it true. This was true too for Jean Paul Sartre. The atheist Sartre said that this Godless universe has no meaning but “Let’s pretend the universe has meaning.” But this is just fooling ourselves.
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Let me share a portion of an article by William Lane Craig with you.
Why on atheism life has no ultimate meaning, value, or purpose, and why this view is unlivable.
Francis Schaeffer has explained this point well. Modern man, says Schaeffer, resides in a two-story universe. In the lower story is the finite world without God; here life is absurd, as we have seen. In the upper story are meaning, value, and purpose. Now modern man lives in the lower story because he believes there is no God. But he cannot live happily in such an absurd world; therefore, he continually makes leaps of faith into the upper story to affirm meaning, value, and purpose, even though he has no right to, since he does not believe in God.
Let’s look again, then, at each of the three areas in which we saw life was absurd without God, to show how man cannot live consistently and happily with his atheism.
Meaning of Life
First, the area of meaning. We saw that without God, life has no meaning. Yet philosophers continue to live as though life does have meaning. For example, Sartre argued that one may create meaning for his life by freely choosing to follow a certain course of action. Sartre himself chose Marxism.
Now this is utterly inconsistent. It is inconsistent to say life is objectively absurd and then to say one may create meaning for his life. If life is really absurd, then man is trapped in the lower story. To try to create meaning in life represents a leap to the upper story. But Sartre has no basis for this leap. Without God, there can be no objective meaning in life. Sartre’s program is actually an exercise in self-delusion. Sartre is really saying, “Let’s pretend the universe has meaning.” And this is just fooling ourselves.
The point is this: if God does not exist, then life is objectively meaningless; but man cannot live consistently and happily knowing that life is meaningless; so in order to be happy he pretends life has meaning. But this is, of course, entirely inconsistent—for without God, man and the universe are without any real significance.
Value of Life
Turn now to the problem of value. Here is where the most blatant inconsistencies occur. First of all, atheistic humanists are totally inconsistent in affirming the traditional values of love and brotherhood. Camus has been rightly criticized for inconsistently holding both to the absurdity of life and the ethics of human love and brotherhood. The two are logically incompatible. Bertrand Russell, too, was inconsistent. For though he was an atheist, he was an outspoken social critic, denouncing war and restrictions on sexual freedom. Russell admitted that he could not live as though ethical values were simply a matter of personal taste, and that he therefore found his own views “incredible.” “I do not know the solution,” he confessed.” [7] The point is that if there is no God, then objective right and wrong cannot exist. As Dostoyevsky said, “All things are permitted.”
But Dostoyevsky also showed that man cannot live this way. He cannot live as though it is perfectly all right for soldiers to slaughter innocent children. He cannot live as though it is all right for dictators like Pol Pot to exterminate millions of their own countrymen. Everything in him cries out to say these acts are wrong—really wrong. But if there is no God, he cannot. So he makes a leap of faith and affirms values anyway. And when he does so, he reveals the inadequacy of a world without God.
The horror of a world devoid of value was brought home to me with new intensity a few years ago as I viewed a BBC television documentary called “The Gathering.” It concerned the reunion of survivors of the Holocaust in Jerusalem, where they rediscovered lost friendships and shared their experiences. One woman prisoner, a nurse, told of how she was made the gynecologist at Auschwitz. She observed that pregnant women were grouped together by the soldiers under the direction of Dr. Mengele and housed in the same barracks. Some time passed, and she noted that she no longer saw any of these women. She made inquiries. “Where are the pregnant women who were housed in that barracks?” “Haven’t you heard?” came the reply. “Dr. Mengele used them for vivisection.”
Another woman told of how Mengele had bound up her breasts so that she could not suckle her infant. The doctor wanted to learn how long an infant could survive without nourishment. Desperately this poor woman tried to keep her baby alive by giving it pieces of bread soaked in coffee, but to no avail. Each day the baby lost weight, a fact that was eagerly monitored by Dr. Mengele. A nurse then came secretly to this woman and told her, “I have arranged a way for you to get out of here, but you cannot take your baby with you. I have brought a morphine injection that you can give to your child to end its life.” When the woman protested, the nurse was insistent: “Look, your baby is going to die anyway. At least save yourself.” And so this mother took the life of her own baby. Dr. Mengele was furious when he learned of it because he had lost his experimental specimen, and he searched among the dead to find the baby’s discarded corpse so that he could have one last weighing.
My heart was torn by these stories. One rabbi who survived the camp summed it up well when he said that at Auschwitz it was as though there existed a world in which all the Ten Commandments were reversed. Mankind had never seen such a hell.
And yet, if God does not exist, then in a sense, our world is Auschwitz: there is no absolute right and wrong; all things are permitted. But no atheist, no agnostic, can live consistently with such a view. Nietzsche himself, who proclaimed the necessity of living beyond good and evil, broke with his mentor Richard Wagner precisely over the issue of the composer’s anti-Semitism and strident German nationalism. Similarly Sartre, writing in the aftermath of the Second World War, condemned anti-Semitism, declaring that a doctrine that leads to extermination is not merely an opinion or matter of personal taste, of equal value with its opposite. [8] In his important essay “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” Sartre struggles vainly to elude the contradiction between his denial of divinely pre-established values and his urgent desire to affirm the value of human persons. Like Russell, he could not live with the implications of his own denial of ethical absolutes.
A second problem is that if God does not exist and there is no immortality, then all the evil acts of men go unpunished and all the sacrifices of good men go unrewarded. But who can live with such a view? Richard Wurmbrand, who has been tortured for his faith in communist prisons, says,
The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man. The communist torturers often said, ‘There is no God, no Hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.’ I have heard one torturer even say, ‘I thank God, in whom I don’t believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.’ He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners. [9]
And the same applies to acts of self-sacrifice. A number of years ago, a terrible mid-winter air disaster occurred in which a plane leaving the Washington, D.C., airport smashed into a bridge spanning the Potomac River, plunging its passengers into the icy waters. As the rescue helicopters came, attention was focused on one man who again and again pushed the dangling rope ladder to other passengers rather than be pulled to safety himself. Six times he passed the ladder by. When they came again, he was gone. He had freely given his life that others might live. The whole nation turned its eyes to this man in respect and admiration for the selfless and good act he had performed. And yet, if the atheist is right, that man was not noble—he did the stupidest thing possible. He should have gone for the ladder first, pushed others away if necessary in order to survive. But to die for others he did not even know, to give up all the brief existence he would ever have—what for? For the atheist there can be no reason. And yet the atheist, like the rest of us, instinctively reacts with praise for this man’s selfless action. Indeed, one will probably never find an atheist who lives consistently with his system. For a universe without moral accountability and devoid of value is unimaginably terrible.
The Success of Biblical Christianity
But if atheism fails in this regard, what about biblical Christianity? According to the Christian world view, God does exist, and man’s life does not end at the grave. In the resurrection body man may enjoy eternal life and fellowship with God. Biblical Christianity therefore provides the two conditions necessary for a meaningful, valuable, and purposeful life for man: God and immortality. Because of this, we can live consistently and happily. Thus, biblical Christianity succeeds precisely where atheism breaks down.
Conclusion
Now I want to make it clear that I have not yet shown biblical Christianity to be true. But what I have done is clearly spell out the alternatives. If God does not exist, then life is futile. If the God of the Bible does exist, then life is meaningful. Only the second of these two alternatives enables us to live happily and consistently. Therefore, it seems to me that even if the evidence for these two options were absolutely equal, a rational person ought to choose biblical Christianity. It seems to me positively irrational to prefer death, futility, and destruction to life, meaningfulness, and happiness. As Pascal said, we have nothing to lose and infinity to gain.
[1]Kai Nielsen, “Why Should I Be Moral?” American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984): 90.
[3]H.G. Wells, The Time Machine (New York: Berkeley, 1957), chap. 11.
[4]W.E. Hocking, Types of Philosophy (New York: Scribner’s, 1959), 27.
[5]Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Gay Science,” in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. W. Kaufmann (New York: Viking, 1954), 95.
[6]Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship,” in Why I Am Not a Christian, ed. P. Edwards (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1957), 107.
[7]Bertrand Russell, Letter to the Observer, 6 October, 1957.
[8]Jean Paul Sartre, “Portrait of the Antisemite,” in Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Satre, rev. ed., ed. Walter Kaufmann (New York: New Meridian Library, 1975), p. 330.
[10]Ernst Bloch, Das Prinzip Hoffnung, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1959), 2:360-1.
[11]Loyal D. Rue, “The Saving Grace of Noble Lies,” address to the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, February, 1991.
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This reminds me of an illustration from Francis Schaeffer of what existentialism means:
When we speak of irrationalism or existentialism or the existential methodology, we are pointing to a quite simple idea. It may have been expressed in a variety of complicated ways by philosophers, but it is not a difficult concept. Imagine that you are at the movies watching a suspense film. As the story unfolds, the tension increases until finally the hero is trapped in some impossible situation and everyone is groaning inwardly, wondering how he is going to get out of the mess. The suspense is heightened by the knowledge (of the audience, not the hero) that help is on the way in the form of the good guys. The only question is: will the good guys arrive in time? Now imagine for a moment that the audience is slipped the information that there are no good guys, that the situation of the hero is not just desperate, but completely hopeless. Obviously, the first thing that would happen is that the suspense would be gone. You and the entire audience would simply be waiting for the axe to fall. If the hero faced the end with courage, this would be morally edifying, but the situation itself would be tragic. If, however, the hero acted as if help were around the corner and kept buoying himself up with this thought (“Someone is on the way!” – “Help is at hand!”), all you could feel for him would be pity. It would be a means to keep hope alive within a hopeless situation. The hero’s hope would change nothing on the outside; it would be unable to manufacture, out of nothing, good guys coming to the rescue. All it would achieve would the hero’s own mental state of hopefulness rather than hopelessness. The hopefulness itself would rest on a lie or an illusion and thus, viewed objectively, would be finally absurd. And if the hero really knew what the situation was, but consciously used the falsehood to buoy up his feelings and go whistling along, we would either say, “Poor guy!” or “He’s a fool.” It is this kind of conscious deceit that someone like Woody Allen has looked full in the face and will have none of. Now this is what the existential methodology is about. If the universe we are living in is what the materialistic humanists say it is, then with our reason (when we stop to think about it) we could find absolutely no way to have meaning or morality or hope or beauty. This would plunge us into despair. We would have to take seriously the challenge of Albert Camus (1913-1960) in the first sentence of The Myth of Sisyphus: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”92 Why stay alive in an absurd universe? Ah! But that is not where we stop. We say to ourselves – “There is hope!” (even though there is no help). “We shall overcome!” (even though nothing is more certain than that we shall be destroyed, both individually at death and cosmically with the end of all conscious life). This is what confronts us on all sides today: the modern irrationalism.
Francis Schaeffer has correctly argued:
The universe was created by an infinite personal God and He brought it into existence by spoken word and made man in His own image. When man tries to reduce [philosophically in a materialistic point of view] himself to less than this [less than being made in the image of God] he will always fail and he will always be willing to make these impossible leaps into the area of nonreason even though they don’t give an answer simply because that isn’t what he is. He himself testifies that this infinite personal God, the God of the Old and New Testament is there.
Instead of making a leap into the area of nonreason the better choice would be to investigate the claims that the Bible is a historically accurate book and that God created the universe and reached out to humankind with the Bible. Below is a piece of that evidence given by Francis Schaeffer concerning the accuracy of the Bible.
TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?)
We now take a jump back in time to the middle of the ninth century before Christ, that is, about 850 B.C. Most people have heard of Jezebel. She was the wife of Ahab, the king of the northern kingdom of Israel. Her wickedness has become so proverbial that we talk about someone as a “Jezebel.” She urged her husband to have Naboth killed, simply because Ahab had expressed his liking for a piece of land owned by Naboth, who would not sell it. The Bible tells us also that she introduced into Israel the worship of her homeland, the Baal worship of Tyre. This led to the opposition of Elijah the Prophet and to the famous conflict on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the priests of Baal.
Here again one finds archaeological confirmations of what the Bible says. Take for example: “As for the other events of Ahab’s reign, including all he did, the palace he built and inlaid with ivory, and the cities he fortified, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?” (I Kings 22:39).
This is a very brief reference in the Bible to events which must have taken a long time: building projects which probably spanned decades. Archaeological excavations at the site of Samaria, the capital, reveal something of the former splendor of the royal citadel. Remnants of the “ivory house” were found and attracted special attention (Palestinian Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem). This appears to have been a treasure pavilion in which the walls and furnishings had been adorned with colored ivory work set with inlays giving a brilliant too, with the denunciations revealed by the prophet Amos:
“I will tear down the winter house along with the summer house; the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed and the mansions will be demolished,” declares the Lord. (Amos 3:15)
Other archaeological confirmation exists for the time of Ahab. Excavations at Hazor and Megiddo have given evidence of the the extent of fortifications carried out by Ahab. At Megiddo, in particular, Ahab’s works were very extensive including a large series of stables formerly assigned to Solomon’s time.
On the political front, Ahab had to contend with danger from the Aramacaus king of Syria who besieged Samaria, Ahab’s capital. Ben-hadad’s existence is attested by a stela (a column with writing on it) which has been discovered with his name written on it (Melquart Stela, Aleppo Museum, Syria). Again, a detail of history given in the Bible is shown to be correct.
This brings me to the message of Solomon in ECCLESIASTES and below are comments by Francis Schaeffer:
Ecclesiastes 9:7-12
7 Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.
8 Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.
9 Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, (DOES IT SOUND OPTIMISTIC? NOW COMES THE BACKLASH) all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.
11 Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.12 For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.
Solomon when at work takes off his hat and he stands by the grave of man and he says, “ALAS. ALAS. ALAS.”
But interestingly enough the story of Ecclesiastes does not end its message here because in two places in the New Testament it is picked up and carried along and put in its proper perspective.
Luke 12:16-21
16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax,eat, drink, be merry.”’ [ALMOST EVERYONE WHO HAS PROCEEDED HERE HAS FELT CERTAINLY THAT JESUS IS DELIBERATELY REFERRING TO SOLOMON’S SOLUTION.]20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
Christ here points out the reason for the failure of the logic that is involved. He points out why it fails in logic and then why it fails in reality. This view of Solomon must end in failure philosophically and also in emotional desperation.
We are not made to live in the shortened environment of UNDER THE SUN in this life only!!! Neither are we made to live only in the environment of a bare concept of afterlife [ignoring trying to make this life better]. We are made to live in the environment of a God who exists and who is the judge. This is the difference and that is what Jesus is setting forth here.
I Corinthians 15:32
32 What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
There is no doubt here he is reaching back to Solomon again and he is just saying if there isn’t a resurrection of the dead then let’s just follow Solomon and let’s just eat and drink for tomorrow we die!!!! If there isn’t this full structure [including the resurrection of the dead] then just have the courage to follow Solomon and we can eat and drink because tomorrow we die and that is all we have. If the full structure isn’t there then pick up the cup and drink it dry! You can say it a different way in the 20th century: If the full structure is not there then go ahead and be an EXISTENTIALIST, but don’t cheat. Drink the cup to the end. Drink it dry! That is what Paul says. Paul the educated man. Paul the man who knew his Greek philosophy. Paul the man who understood Solomon and the dilemma. Paul said it one way or the other. There is no room for a middle ground. IF CHRISTIANS AREN’T RAISED FROM THE DEAD THEN SOLOMON IS RIGHT IN ECCLESIASTES, BUT ONLY THEN. But if he is right then you should accept all of Solomon’s despair and his conclusions.
Seen below is the third episode of AFTERLIFE (season 1) when Matt takes Tony to a comedy club with front row seats to cheer him up but it turns into disaster!!!
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit|Comments (0)
I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events |Tagged Bible Prophecy, john macarthur | Edit|Comments (0)
Prophecy–The Biblical Prophesy About Tyre.mp4 Uploaded by TruthIsLife7 on Dec 5, 2010 A short summary of the prophecy about Tyre and it’s precise fulfillment. Go to this link and watch the whole series for the amazing fulfillment from secular sources. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvt4mDZUefo________________ John MacArthur on the amazing fulfilled prophecy on Tyre and how it was fulfilled […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | Edit|Comments (1)
John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 2) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 1) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
Adrian Rogers – How you can be certain the Bible is the word of God Great article by Adrian Rogers. What evidence is there that the Bible is in fact God’s Word? I want to give you five reasons to affirm the Bible is the Word of God. First, I believe the Bible is the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Biblical Archaeology | Edit|Comments (0)
Is there any evidence the Bible is true? Articles By PleaseConvinceMe Apologetics Radio The Old Testament is Filled with Fulfilled Prophecy Jim Wallace A Simple Litmus Test There are many ways to verify the reliability of scripture from both internal evidences of transmission and agreement, to external confirmation through archeology and science. But perhaps the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology, Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit|Comments (0)
Here is some very convincing evidence that points to the view that the Bible is historically accurate. Archaeological and External Evidence for the Bible Archeology consistently confirms the Bible! Archaeology and the Old Testament Ebla tablets—discovered in 1970s in Northern Syria. Documents written on clay tablets from around 2300 B.C. demonstrate that personal and place […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | E
I have read articles for years from Dan Barker, but recently I just finished the book Barker wrote entitled LIFE DRIVEN PURPOSE which was prompted by Rick Warren’s book PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE which I also read several years ago.
Dan Barker is the Co-President of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, And co-host of Freethought Radio and co-founder of The Clergy Project.
On March 19, 2022, I got an email back from Dan Barker that said:
Thanks for the insights.
Have you read my book Life Driven Purpose? To say there is no purpose OF life is not to say there is no purpose IN life. Life is immensely meaningful when you stop looking for external purpose.
Ukraine … we’ll, we can no longer blame Russian aggression on “godless communism.” The Russian church, as far as I know, has not denounced the war.
db
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In the next few weeks I will be discussing the book LIFE DRIVEN PURPOSE which I did enjoy reading. Here is an assertion that Barker makes that I want to discuss:
In chapter one Barker states:
In The Good Atheist, I profiled hundreds of atheists and nonbelievers who have lived purposeful lives. Elizabeth Cady Stanton working for universal suffrage—the radical idea that women can participate in their own democracy—Margaret Sanger struggling for birth control, W. E. B. Du Bois working for civil rights, Bill Gates combating poverty and poor health, Joe Hill organizing unions, Beatrice and Sydney Webb reforming health care. Actors, artists, authors, composers, feminists, human rights activists, journalists, playwrights, philanthropists, philosophers, poets, political leaders, psychologists, psychiatrists, reformers, revolutionaries, scientists, and songwriters.29 The world has been richly blessed by the actions of nontheists who have cared enough about this world, the only world we are certain of, to try to meet the challenges that threaten our survival and well-being.
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I explained earlier that I have many friends who are skeptics and I hold them in high regard and consider them extremely ethical. The late John George (author of THEY NEVER SAID IT) was one of those and below you can see that he came to my defense with Farrell Till and Farrell changed his attitude about me and actually ran an article I gave him from Ted Davis about James Bartley and the fake modern day Jonah story which I heard from my pulpit while growing up in a Baptist Church.
Dr. Ted Davis
This originally came to our church from a book by Sidlow Baxter who spoke several times at our church. Below I will provide John George’s letter about my Daniel article and then provide my article last following the article on the modern Jonah. You will notice also that I have confronted over 30 religious right authors who have used founders quotes that have not been verified, and Farrell Till praised Dr. George and I for our efforts in that regard. D. James Kennedy and Tim LaHaye were two of the individuals who tried to defend their use of these unverified quotes.
Having been quite impressed with your work (especially your humor and fairness) for several years now, I feel compelled to call your attention to two instances where you have written inaccurately about claims made by Everette Hatcher. And please understand that my views on religion are the same as yours and thus in diametric opposition to those of Mr. Hatcher.
(1) TSR, March/April 1998, p. 7, you accuse Hatcher of misrepresenting the views of Norman Porteous by claiming Porteous as an advocate of 6th century BCE authorship of Daniel, ^but^ on p. 2 (middle column) Hatcher calls Porteous a “Bible critic” who questions only one small item about Daniel. Hatcher has never tried to pass Porteous off as anything other than a proponent of the 2nd century BCE authorship view.
(2) TSR, July/August 1998, p. 14, you again accuse Hatcher of purposely leaving the impression that certain scholars favor the 6th century BCE view. Knowing Everette Hatcher as I do, I can state unequivocally that he is intellectually honest and would do no such thing. Hatcher respects your scholarship and broad knowledge of the Bible and has stated these views to me on three different occasions.
Please continue your instructive work.
(John George, College of Liberal Arts, University of Central Oklahoma, Department of Political Science, 100 North University Drive, Edmond, OK 73034-5209)
EDITOR’S NOTE: In the June/July 1998 issue, I explained that Everette Hatcher had informed me during a phone conversation that I had misunderstood his intentions, because he was not trying “to leave the impression that scholars like H. H. Rowley, Samuel Driver, and Norman Porteous were advocates of a 6th-century B. C. authorship of Daniel” but was claiming only that they “had made some admissions that were damaging to their position that this book was written in the 2nd century B. C., during the Maccabean era” (p. 6). I went on to say that after having reread Hatcher’s article, I had noticed some sections “that could be so interpreted.” I noted, however, that Hatcher did at other times leave the impression that “these scholars were on his side” but that I was “willing to take his word for it” if he claimed that his intention was not to misrepresent. That issue, then, has already been settled, but I do think that in future articles, Hatcher should be more careful in his citation of authorities. One thing that he may want to keep in mind is that it isn’t a good idea to quote just a brief fragment of an author’s statement, without giving the full context of the statement, especially when the full context would clearly show a position that is contrary to the one that is being argued. This tactic is so widespread in the literature of biblical fundamentalism that an apologist with honest intentions who quotes only fragments and snatches from his sources will run the risk of having his readers assume that they are seeing just another inerrantist attempt to misrepresent.
Even Hatcher should realize this risk, because he has sent to me articles and published letters that he has written to biblical fundamentalists like Tim LaHaye and Dr. James Kennedy in which he took them to task for quoting out of context and even falsifying quotations in efforts to make Bible-believing Christians out of so-called “founding fathers” like George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson. He should be aware, then, of the danger of being misunderstood when fragmented quotations are lifted from a larger context as support for a position that the quoted author does not himself defend.
My contacts with Professor John George and Everette Hatcher since the discussions of the book of Daniel began have altered significantly my opinion of Mr. Hatcher. I have seen enough of his letters to biblical fundamentalists to see that even though he is himself a biblical inerrantist, he deplores the dishonest methods that many inerrantists use in defense of their positions. What I have seen has, in fact, given me hope that Hatcher may some day see that biblical inerrancy is a position that cannot be sustained even by honest methods of argumentation. The recognition that there is no real evidence to support their position is probably why so many inerrantists resort to dishonest apologetic methods.
Although the religious beliefs of the so-called founding fathers is not an issue that TSR discusses, I will take the time to mention that Everette Hatcher sent to me an excellent manuscript (“Misquotes, Fake Quotes, and Disputed Quotes of the Founders”) on the subject. It exposes the misrepresentations and distortions found in the works of Christian fundamentalists who are trying hard to make their readers believe that men like Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Madison, etc. were zealous, Bible-believing Christians. Those interested in seeing the manuscript should contact Hatcher at 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002.
I have also learned that Hatcher and Professor George have worked together on this issue and that George and Paul Boller, Jr., co-authored *They Never Said It,* a book published by Oxford University Press, which exposes many misquotations that Christian fundamentalists, in their zeal to make the United States a nation founded on biblical principles, have attributed to the “founding fathers.” Paul F. Boller, Jr., is a historian at Texas Christian University, whose book George Washington & Religion (Southern University Press, 1963) demolished the myth that Washington was a devout Christian.
In the last issue of TSR, we discussed the myth about astronomical proof of Joshua’s long day that biblicists still recycle from time to time even though it has been repeatedly discredited and even rejected by scientifically informed inerrantists. As the mailbag column in this issue shows, these articles created a lot of interest in the subject, an interest that is no doubt partly due to the attention that this myth has received on the internet, where naive biblicists continue to cite it as proof of biblical inerrancy. I mentioned in my article that I recalled encountering this myth for the first time when as a Bible college student in the 50s, I dutifully read Harry Rimmer’s Harmony of Science and Scripture. Rimmer was a Baptist preacher whose stock in trade was defending the Bible with appeals to pseudoscience. He was sort of the Josh McDowell of that time, and no serious ministerial student was without at least some of Rimmer’s books in his personal library.
Over the years, I lost Rimmer’s Harmony of Science and Scripture, but Don Robertson, a subscriber from South Carolina, saw my reference to it and sent me some photocopied pages from the chapter that presented the version of this urban myth that was circulating in the 50s. Now that we have seen the latest “NASA” version of the myth, looking at the version that Rimmer told in his book (copyrighted in 1936) should help even staunch biblicists see the unreliability of the kind of information that their “apologists” use to defend the Bible. The quotation is a bit long, but I’m going to publish it uncut so that no one can accuse me of misrepresenting Rimmer.The final testimony of science is that such a day [Joshua’s long day] left its record for all time. As long as time shall be, the record of this long day must remain. The fact is attested by eminent men of science, two of whom I quote here.Sir Edwin Ball, the great British astronomer, found that twenty-four hours had been lost out of solar time. Where did that go, what was the cause of this strange lapse, and how did it happen? The answer may be expected in vain from sources of human wisdom and learning!There is a place, however, where the answer is found. And this place is attested by a scientist of standing. There is a book by Prof. C. A. Totten of Yale, written in 1890, which establishes the case beyond the shadow of a doubt. The condensed account of his book, briefly summarized, is as follows:Professor Totten wrote of a fellow-professor, an accomplished astronomer, who made the strange discovery that the earth was twenty-four hours out of schedule! That is to say, there had been twenty-four hours lost out of time. In discussing this point with his fellow-professors, Professor Totten challenged this man to investigate the question of the inspiration of the Bible. He said, “You do not believe the Bible to be the Word of God, and I do. Now here is a fine opportunity to prove whether or not the Bible is inspired. You begin to read at the very beginning and read as far as need be, and see if the Bible can account for your missing time.”The astronomer accepted the challenge and began to read. Some time later, when the two men chanced to meet on the campus, Professor Totten asked his friend if he had proved the question to his satisfaction. His colleague replied, “I believe I have definitely proved that the Bible is not the Word of God. In the tenth chapter of Joshua, I found the missing twenty-four hours accounted for. Then I went back and checked up on my figures, and found that at the time of Joshua there were only twenty-three hours and twenty minutes lost. If the Bible made a mistake of forty minutes, it is not the Word of God!”Professor Totten said, “You are right, in part at least. But does the Bible say that a whole day was lost at the time of Joshua?” So they looked and saw that the text said, “aboutthe space of a whole day.”The word “about” changed the whole situation, and the astronomer took up his reading again. He read on until he came to the thirty-eighth chapter of the prophet Isaiah. In this chapter, Isaiah has left us the thrilling story of the king, Hezekiah, who was sick unto death. In response to his prayer, God promised to add fifteen more years to his life. To confirm the truth of His promise, God offered a sign. He said, “Go out in the court and look at the sundial of Ahaz. I will make the shadow on the sundial back up ten degrees!” Isaiah recounts that the king looked, and while he looked, the shadow turned backward ten degrees, by which ten degrees it had already gone down! This settles the case, for ten degrees on the sundial is forty minutes on the face of the clock! So the accuracy of the Book was established to the satisfaction of this exacting critic.When the astronomer found his day of missing time thus accounted for, he laid down the Book and worshipped its Writer, saying, “Lord, I believe!” (Harmony of Science and Scripture, Books, Inc., 1960, pp. 236-238).
I naively lapped up such stuff as this in my Bible college days. I’m embarrassed to admit it, because Rimmer’s story almost reeks with the smell of phoniness. In his rebuttal of the NASA version of this myth, Charles Brennecke explained why finding a “missing day” in the time of Joshua would not be possible, but the scientifically impossible claims in the story are not the only reasons to doubt it. Professor Totten, the source of Rimmer’s version of the myth, apparently didn’t bother to give the name of his “fellow-professor,” who was identified only as an “accomplished astronomer,” so there was no way that Rimmer’s readers could have checked the accuracy of Totten’s claim that a professor’s quest to find a missing day in time had converted him from skeptic to believer. I’m always suspicious of tales about unnamed skeptics who are instantly converted without even taking the time to evaluate whatever it was that presumably impressed them so profoundly. I would say that Totten’s “fellow-professor” could not have been much of an “accomplished astronomer”–and certainly not an accomplished skeptic–if immediately after reading the tale about Hezekiah’s sundial, he laid the Bible down and said, “Lord, I believe!” This sounds too much like those apologetic yarns about the atheistic professor who was silenced in his tracks by a simplistic question that any informed skeptic could easily answer, but pulpit audiences eat up this kind of stuff. That’s why preachers use it.
Furthermore, Rimmer, like his present-day counterparts, didn’t even try to explain how the “professor” knew that exactly 23 hours and 20 minutes were missing in the time of Joshua. He simply said that the professor “checked up on [his] figures” and made this determination. Exactly what calculations did the professor make, and what “figures” did he check? How was he even able to make any calculations at all without knowing the exact orbital positions of the earth and moon before and after the alleged long day? It’s incredible that biblicists would continue to circulate this yarn without even investigating to see if existing scientific information can even establish its truth.
In many respects, however, the versions of this tale are alike. Rimmer tried to give his account respectability by attributing the quest for a missing day in time to a professor at Yale and a “fellow-professor” who was an “accomplished astronomer.” Harold Hill adapted his account to the space program and made NASA scientists the counterparts of the professor at Yale and his friend, the “accomplished astronomer,” but in both accounts, “scientists,” who would presumably be trustworthy people qualified to know, had discovered a missing day in time and then found the explanation for it in the Bible. The end result in the minds of gullible inerrantists would be that science has confirmed the truth of the biblical account of Joshua’s long day. Never mind that the information in either version of the story was insufficient to establish the truth of a myth that presumably proves the biblical myth. What biblical inerrantists are going to know enough about science to see holes in the story? Those who do know enough about science to see flaws in it (like the staff members of Apologetics Press, Inc., mentioned in my earlier article on the subject) reject the myth and advise others not to use it as an apologetic argument, but that Christians who have no background in science would be so quick to believe such a tale as this should not be surprising. After all, their whole religious lives have been based on a believe-anything approach to the Bible.
Everette Hatcher, whose defense of the book of Daniel will continue in the next issue, apparently recognizes the phoniness of at least some of the information that Christian apologists use to defend biblical inerrancy, because he has sent to me an article from Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith that debunks another “scientific” proof that Rimmer used in Harmony of Science and Scripture. Rimmer claimed that the story of an English sailor, who was swallowed by a “whale shark” and then recovered alive forty-eight hours later, proves that the story of Jonah is scientifically possible. The article that Hatcher sent to me (“A Whale of a Tale: Fundamentalist Fish Stories,” December 4, 1991, pp. 224-237) was written by Dr. Edward B. Davis, a professor of science and history at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. It relates the author’s detailed research into Rimmer’s fish story, a tedious effort that took Davis into the archives of various libraries and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic over a period of several months before leading him to the conclusion that the story was a legend that never happened. The article is fascinating reading that I highly recommend, because it shows not only how legends begin and grow but how that they can even become full blown within the lifetimes of the principal parties in them. This latter point is important, because a popular argument that Christian apologists use in defense of the resurrection of Jesus is that a minimum of four generations is necessary for a legend to develop, because if it begins earlier than this, people who lived at the time of the event or person being legendized would be able to nip the story in the bud by testifying that they were alive at the time and place and knew nothing about the events and people in the legend. According to the argument, the same would be true of the second- and third-generation descendants of people who had lived at the time. They could kill the legend by testifying that their parents and grandparents living at the time had never mentioned any events or persons involved in it. This is a commonly heard apologetic argument, but Davis’s research into Rimmer’s fish story shows that it is without basis, because legends can and do develop over much shorter periods of time than four generations and sometimes even within the very lifetimes of the principal parties in the legends. In this country, we have only to consider the legends that developed around such frontier heroes and outlaws as Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, etc. to know that legends can develop much sooner than four generations. I could cite other examples of rapidly emerging legends, but at this point I am not as interested in debunking the fundamentalist argument about legends as in showing how that a particular legend about a man and a whale began and was used in a pseudoscientific attempt to vindicate the Bible.
Davis became interested in Rimmer’s modern Jonah when he inherited books from a relative of his wife and found inside one of them a copy of a sermon that Harry Rimmer had preached on “Jonah and the Whale.” Between the book pages, there were also sermons on “Noah’s Ark and the Deluge” and “Modern Science and the Long Day of Joshua,” all of which Rimmer had later included in Harmony of Science and the Scripture. Attached to Rimmer’s sermon on Jonah was a tract about Jonah by an unknown Fred T. Fuge and also an article from The Moody Bible Institute Monthly (September 1930), which had been written by Professor Albertus Pieters of Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, to explore the possibility of a man’s being able to survive for three days in the stomach of a whale. Pieters’ article cited some sources that I will refer to later, but first I will present the version of the modern-day Jonah as Davis found it in Rimmer’s sermon folded between the pages of the book he had inherited.In the Literary Digest we noticed an account of an English sailor who was swallowed by a gigantic Rhinodon [i. e., a whale shark] in the English Channel. Briefly, the account stated that in the attempt to harpoon one of these monstrous sharks this sailor fell overboard, and before he could be picked up again, the shark, feeding, turned and engulfed him. His horrified friends made so much outcry that they frightened the fish, and it sounded and disappeared.The entire trawler fleet put out to hunt the fish down, and forty-eight hours after the incident occurred the fish was sighted and slain with a one-pound deck-gun. The winches on the trawlers were too light to haul up the body of the mighty denizen of the deep, so they towed the carcass to the shore and opened it, to give the body of their friend Christian burial. But when the shark was opened, they were amazed to find the man unconscious but alive! He was rushed to the hospital, where he was found to be suffering from shock alone, and a few hours later was discharged as being physically fit. The account concluded by saying that the man was on exhibit in a London Museum at a shilling admittance fee; being advertised as “The Jonah of the Twentieth Century.”We corresponded with our representatives in London, and shortly afterward received corroboration of this incident, and last year had the privilege of meeting this man in person. His physical appearance was odd, in that his entire body was devoid of hair, and odd patches of a yellowish-brown color covered his entire skin (Davis, pp. 229-230).
Davis noted that Rimmer’s account was characteristically lacking in details that would enable readers to verify the account. He didn’t give the name of the sailor even though he claimed that he had later met him in person. He said only that the sailor “was on exhibit in a London Museum at a shilling admittance fee,” but he didn’t give the name of the museum. He didn’t give the name of the town along the English Channel where the incident happened and the sailor was later retrieved alive from the whale shark’s stomach. These are all strange omissions in a story that the writer obviously intended as scientific verification of the biblical story of Jonah.
Rimmer did say that he had read the story in the Literary Digest, but he didn’t give the date of publication. Davis explained that the Literary Digest was a “popular magazine from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that was rather like a cross between Reader’s Digest and Newsweek” (p. 230). Davis told how that he was able to find every issue of Literary Digest from 1916 through 1927, with the exception of “a few issues just before 1920,” and look through each one for the article that Rimmer had alluded to in his sermon. He was unable to find “anything even remotely like the story Rimmer printed” (p. 230). Davis noted that in Harmony of Science and Scripture, which was published after the sermon, Rimmer’s version of the modern-Jonah story was identical to the one he had told in his sermon except that he omitted the reference to Literary Digest and said only that he had read the story in “a magazine devoted to current affairs” (p. 230). Davis speculated that Rimmer had originally encountered a version of the story that claimed the Literary Digest as its source, and had accepted it without verification. When he perhaps learned later that no such story had ever appeared in Literary Digest, he changed the source reference in Harmony of Science and Scripture to a vague, imprecise “magazine devoted to current affairs.” The end result was that the version in Harmony contained no specific information at all that readers could have used to verify Rimmer’s claim.
Rimmer’s imprecision did not deter Davis’s determination to verify the story. Fuge’s tract, which Davis had found folded in the book with Rimmer’s sermon, told a similar story that the author attributed to a book written by a missionary to Iceland named Arthur Cook. (Davis later found this book and learned that the author’s name was really Gook, not Cook.) This version of the story contained some specific details. The sailor’s name was James Bartley, and he was allegedly a crew member of a whaling ship named Star of the East.The incident had happened not in the English Channel, but off the coast of the Falkland Islands (in the Southern Atlantic). The “fish” was not a “whale shark” but an actual whale, which, after being harpooned, had sounded, resurfaced, thrashing in a fit of agony, and capsized one of the boats. Before the crew of the other boat could pick up the men, one had drowned, and another named James Bartley could not be found. The whale was towed to the ship, where the crew worked the rest of the day and part of the night to butcher and process it. Work resumed the next day, and when the crew had stripped away all the fat and flesh, the stomach was hoisted onto the ship, where Bartley was found unconscious but still alive inside it. As in Rimmer’s version of the story, Bartley survived the horrifying incident.
Armed now with at least a few specific details, Davis set out to check the story for accuracy. He surmised that if an incident like this had happened, it would probably have been picked up and published by the New York Times. Neither Rimmer nor Fuge had given a date for the alleged incident, but fortunately the article by Pieters (cited above) had given February 1891 as the date for a similar event alleged in it. Davis checked the Times Index for that year, found a lot of references to whales, but nothing about an incident like the one claimed by Rimmer, Fuge, and Pieters. He continued checking through the index for the next year and the next and the next, until in the volume for 1896, he found the entry: “Whale; man swallowed by….” On the microfilm for that year, he found the story, which was almost identical to the version he had read in Fuge’s tract but with an additional note that “The Mercury of South Yarmouth, England, October 1891” was the source of the information. In going through the other issues of the Times on the same microfilm roll, Davis found more entries that referred to the Bartley story. A Harlem preacher, for example, had claimed that he had verified the existence of a ship named The Star of the East, which was a barque of 734 tons that had been “built in Glasgow, based in London, and commanded by a Captain J. B. Killam” (p. 226).
At this point, Davis had begun to feel that this story was perhaps true, but he wasn’t quite ready to declare it a proven fact. Shortly afterwards, when he received a grant from the National Science Foundation to do research on another project in the library of the Royal Society in London, he saw it as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. In addition to doing his research project for NSF, he would also try to verify the information he had so far uncovered on the James Bartley incident.
Few can read this article and lay it aside without feeling a profound admiration for Dr. Davis’s tenacious commitment to thorough research. Not many would have the time, patience, or means to put into research the effort that Davis expended in his search to find if the Bartley story was true. In England, he encountered all sorts of problems in his quest to verify the information he had found about Bartley in the United States. These problems are too numerous to summarize here (Davis’s article was 14 pages long), so I will mention only the major ones. At the British Library, he found copies of two sources of the Bartley story that Pieters had mentioned in his article, and discovered in one of them a version of the story that claimed that Bartley had been treated at a London hospital for injury to his skin. Knowing now when the incident had allegedly occurred, Davis checked the *British Medical Journal* for 1891-1895, but found no references at all to anyone who had ever been treated for the skin problems that Bartley supposedly had suffered after his ordeal with the whale. Davis even checked into the possibility of searching through hospital records for 1891 but inquiries about the feasibility of trying this convinced him that it would be an impossible task even if records from that time could be found.
He then turned to checking the claim of the New York Times that the Bartley story had first been reported in an October 1891 issue of the South Yarmouth Mercury, but his research in this direction found that no such newspaper had ever existed and that there wasn’t even a place called South Yarmouth listed on any maps of England. He did, however, find that there was a Great Yarmouth on the seacoast a hundred miles north of London and that it even had a local newspaper called the Yarmouth Mercury, which had been in print since 1890.
The specifics of Davis’s research, some aspects of which I am even omitting, are too tediously detailed to include here, but through correspondence he eventually managed to find a library in Norwich County with microfilms of the Yarmouth paper and a librarian who was willing to look for the whale story. When nothing was heard from the library after a few weeks, he called to inquire about the status of the research and was told that just the day before the story had been found in the June 1891 issue of the Yarmouth Independent.The Yarmouth Independent? This was not the Yarmouth Mercury that had been mentioned in his source article, so he asked for confirmation of the name and date and was assured that both were right. The librarian, however, informed him that the story was different from the one he had written about, because this was just a story about a whale that had been killed off the coast of a nearby town named Gorleston, but there was no man inside it! “We’ve never heard such a story as this,” the librarian informed him.
Determined to follow every possible lead to the end, Davis made a three-hour train trip to Great Yarmouth the next day to go through the library archives himself. The story he found was about a 30-foot rorqual whale that had run into a pier at the town of Gorleston “just south of Great Yarmouth.” Several boats then pursued the whale, and after attempts to harpoon it had failed, the men ran it aground and killed it. The whale was then hung up by its tail on the shore and kept on exhibit for two days, where it was seen by an estimated crowd of over 2000. It was later dissected, and a taxidermist was hired to stuff the skin, which was then put on exhibit in the London Westminster Aquarium.
Davis’s first reaction was that this could not have been the whale he was searching for, but subsequent research made him suspect that it was. For one thing, he continued his search in the archives of the Great Yarmouth library and found that two months after the story about the Gorleston whale was published another story ran about a man who was swallowed by a whale and later found alive, and the story was similar to the version that was in Fuge’s tract, which had been attached to Rimmer’s sermon. The publication of two whale stories in the same paper within the space of only two months was a coincidence that Davis wanted to pursue, so plodding on in his research, he uncovered still other versions of the story that had been published in the 1890s. One of them had even appeared in a French journal whose editor (Henri de Parville) was a respected science journalist. In his article, Parville had said that after having confronted this “entirely modern example,” he had ended up “believing, this evening, between ten and eleven o’clock, that Jonah really did come out of the whale alive” (Davis, p. 231). Besides Parville’s article, Davis had found a copy of the book written by Arthur Gook, the Icelandic missionary, whom Fuge had quoted in his tract. Upon learning that Gook had even published an Icelandic version of the book, Davis searched until he found a copy of it, at which time he learned that the version of the Bartley story was different in it. For one thing, this version gave the date of the incident as August 25, 1891, whereas Gook had cited February 1891 as the date in his English version.
So many different whale-swallows-man tales all published in the same decade was a perplexing situation that Davis wanted to find an explanation for. Besides the many variations in the various accounts, Davis was disturbed by an obvious absence of any indications that real scientific research had gone into verification of the story before any of the accounts had been published. In reference to two French accounts of the story that Davis had found, he said, “(I)t isn’t the least bit clear from anything I have found that either one made what could be described as a careful investigation of the incident. I will state this more strongly: no one, repeat, no one, has given the story the kind of careful investigation it warrants if it is to be used as evidence for the reliability of scripture. Yet this is precisely what everyone citing the story assumes–that its authenticity has been established beyond a reasonable doubt, at least by de Parville if not also by others” (Davis p. 231).
The variations in the story and the obvious absence of serious scientific investigation before publishing the accounts were just two problems that bothered Davis. His research had uncovered other anomalies that led him to conclude that the Bartley story was actually a legend that, oddly enough, had its roots in the Gorleston whale, which had had no man in its stomach. Davis’s research had discovered that there had been three vessels named Star of the Eastin the 1890s, but since two of them were actually boats of less than 20 tons, Davis concluded that the 734-ton Star of the East had to be the ship in the Bartley story, but it was a cargo ship and not a whaler. Furthermore, Davis learned that even though Bartley had allegedly been swallowed by the whale in 1891 near the Falkland islands, whaling in this area had not even begun until 1909, almost two decades after the contradictory dates cited in the different versions. Davis found sailing schedules for the 734-ton vessel and learned that it had sailed from New York for Wellington, New Zealand, on June 25, 1890, under the command of Captain J. B. Killam, whom the New York Times article had reported was the ship’s captain. The date of its arrival in New Zealand could not be found, but the schedules reported that it left in early November for a return voyage to New York and had arrived there on April 17, 1891, a date that should have put it in the proximity of the Falkland Islands in February. ^However,^ Davis had also obtained a copy of the “crew agreement” (contract) that had listed “every member of the crew (including a few who signed on in Wellington and deserted just six days later in Lyttleton), and there is no James Bartley on the list,nor anyone of similar name, either for the entire voyage or any part of it” (Davis, p. 233).
Davis even learned that some apparent attempts were made to debunk this story at the very time that it was developing into a legend. L. C. Allen’s commentary on Jonah had cited a correspondence between E. Konig (the author of an article on Jonah in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible) and a reader named Williams, which was published in 1906 and 1907 in The Expository Times.Williams had requested Konig’s opinion of the Bartley story, and in his reply Konig had said that he would be interested in knowing “if the source and the certainty of the above narrative could be established” (Davis p. 232). In his reply, Williams included transcriptions of a letter from Mrs. John Killam, the wife of the captain of Star of the East. In it, she said, “(T)here is not one word of truth in the whale story. I was with my husband all the years he was in the Star of the East. There was never a man lost overboard while my husband was in her. The sailor has told a great sea yarn” (Davis, p. 232).
The sailor had told a great sea yarn! This was an indication that Mrs. Killam was convinced that someone had made up a tale that had never happened and had tried to put it into the setting of the ship that her husband had commanded, probably as a ploy to give the story credibility. This was what Davis suspected too. He put together facts that he had uncovered in his research: (1) Harry Rimmer claimed in both his sermon and Harmony of Science and Scripture that he had actually met this sailor, who was on exhibit in a London museum. (2) The earliest version of the Bartley tale that he had found was published in the Yarmouth newspaper only two months after the story of the Gorleston whale had been published in the same paper. (3) The Gorleston whale was stuffed and put on display in a London museum. (4) Tales of a man who had survived having been swallowed by a whale began to appear on both sides of the Atlantic. (5) A man, so some versions of the story claimed, was on exhibit in a London museum claiming that he had once been swallowed by a whale.
So was the Gorleston whale the source of this tale after all even though no man had been found alive in this whale? Davis concluded that this was the probable explanation of a story that had circulated around the world with no real scientific investigation having been made to confirm it. Davis wondered if there had been a person, possibly even named James Bartley, who suffered from a skin condition, and upon hearing about and maybe even seeing the Gorleston whale, he thought that this was an opportunity to share the spotlight and maybe even capitalize on his skin problem by putting himself on exhibit in circus side shows as a man who had survived being swallowed by a whale. To make his story credible, in case anyone bothered to investigate, he had put it into the setting of a real ship that actually had been in the South Atlantic in 1891. Within two months, the story had been picked up by a newspaper that had already shown an interest in whales, and from there it made its way around the world and was made famous by such writers as Rimmer, Gook, Fuge, and Pieters. Even though Mrs. Killam had tried to debunk the story, her denial didn’t receive the notoriety that the story, and so it grew into a full-blown legend. After all, a denial that the sensational happened is never as appealing to human interest as the fantastic is, especially to Christians wanting to prove that the Bible is “God’s word.”
This, of course, is only a hypothesis that Davis formulated as a plausible explanation for the contradictory and sometimes contrary-to-fact data that he had uncovered during his research. The legend may not have begun this way, but however it started, the evidence indicates that there is no historical basis for it. Davis’s research is valuable not just because it established the probable truth about this modern-Jonah story but because it also showed that legends can indeed begin and grow quickly, even within the lifetimes of the parties and events that are legendized. In this case, the legend of James Bartley had even fooled a respected scientific journalist like Henri de Parville. When we see such as this happening in modern times, we have to wonder just how many myths and legends found their way into the Jesus story that became the foundation of Christianity. To think that such could not have happened in a time of ancient superstition is incredibly naive when we know that legends can and do develop in modern times.
Farrell Till has asserted that reputable Bible scholars believe that the book of Daniel was not written by an individual named Daniel during the sixth century B.C. (TSR, Vol 4.3, p. 12). These scholars hold that the writer lived in the time of the Maccabees, and his “purpose was to give his countrymen reason to believe that centuries earlier a prophet of Yahweh had foreseen the rise of the Seleucid Empire and had predicted the triumph of the Maccabean struggle for independence against Antiochus Epiphanes” (TSR, Vol. 7.3, p. 3). William Sierichs, Jr. also takes this position in his article, “Daniel in the Historians’ Den” (TSR, Vol. 7.4, p.8). Sierichs comments, “Daniel can’t get Babylonian history straight, but he does pretty well by the Hellenistic era. Obviously, whoever wrote the book was a very solid citizen of the 2nd century B.C.E., whose `prophecies’ were wholly retroactive.”
Both Till and Sierichs have been influenced by biblical scholars who have embraced the higher critical views of the 1800’s. However, most people have overlooked the fact that these same scholars have made several admissions which are damaging to their Maccabean thesis.
The first admission concerns the conservative’s view that Rome is the fourth kingdom identified in Daniel’s prophecy. Till states the critic’s logic: “A flaw in this interpretation is the obvious fact that the writer of Daniel considered the median and Persian kingdoms to be separate empires, because he had the Neo-Babylonian empire falling to `Darius the Mede’ (5:30-31). This is historically inaccurate (just one of many historical inaccuracies in the book of Daniel), because reliable records of the time indicate that Cyrus the Great captured Babylon and ended the Neo-Babylonian kingdom. Nevertheless, the writer of Daniel told of a reign under “Darius the Mede: that preceded the reign of the Persian king, Cyrus the Great (6:28; 10:1). So if the writer believed that the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to the Medes and then the Medes fell to the Persians, then the fourth kingdom in Daniel’s interpretation would have been Alexander’s Hellenistic empire” (TSR, Vol. 4.3, p. 12).
Notice that Till bases his conclusion on the “obvious fact that the writer of Daniel considered the Median and Persian kingdoms to be separate empires….” However, the famous Bible critic, Dr. Samuel Driver, admitted, “In the book of Daniel the `Medes and Persians’ are, it is true, sometimes represented as united (Daniel 5:28; 6:8, 12, 15, cf. 8:20)” (The Book of Daniel: Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges,Cambridge: University Press, 1900, p. 29). Conservative scholar Stephen Miller comments: “Such an admission seems fatal to Driver’s position, for if the author was aware at one point that the two nations were united into one empire, he certainly would not have construed them as separate both physically and chronologically elsewhere in the same book” (Daniel: The New American Commentary,Nashville, TN, Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1994, p. 95).
Moreover, in Daniel 5:28, the word peres has the same consonants (only the consonants were written in ancient Aramaic and Hebrew scripts) as the Aramaic term translated “Persians” and likely was a paronomasia (a word play) hinting that the division of the kingdom would be accomplished by the Persian armies. Bible critic Norman W. Porteous admits this hints at “the victory of Persia over Babylon” (Daniel, The Old Testament Library,Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965, p. 81). Furthermore, the Bible critic John A. Montgomery agrees (“A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Daniel,” International Critical Commentary, T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1979, p. 263).
Arthur Jeffrey claims the author assumed from his reading of Old Testament prophecies (Isaiah 13:17; 21:2, and Jeremiah 51:11, 28) that the Medes conquered Babylon before the Persians (Arthur Jeffrey, “The Book of Daniel,” Interpreter’s Bible, Nashville: Abingdon, 1956, p. 434). However, Isaiah 21:2 blows this theory out of the water, because it speaks of Elam and Media as the joint-conquerors of Babylon. The critic H. H. Rowley admits: “This was doubtless written after Cyrus, king of Anshan, in southwest Elam, had brought the rest of Elam under his sway, when to the Hebrew observer it appeared likely that these two powers might unite in the destruction of Babylon. And since Elam is mentioned first, it is possible that the passage dates from a time after the absorption of Media by Cyrus” (H. H. Rowley, Darius the Mede and the Four World Empires in the Book of Daniel, 1935; reprint, Cardiff: University of Wales, 1964, p. 58).
Till correctly notes that the writer of Daniel had “Darius the Mede” conquering Babylon, but nowhere does the writer state that Darius was “the king of the Medes” or the “king of Media.” Dr. Robert H. Pfeiffer of Harvard University admitted the author of Daniel was “a very learned man” and “a sage” (Robert H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948, p. 757), but Pfeiffer must have assumed that this “sage” had never read 2 Chronicles 36:20 where it is said that the Jews were servants to Nebuchadnezzar “and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia.” Clearly this indicates that the Persian reign came immediately after the Babylonian reign.
The second admission concerns the madness of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel chapter four. William Sierichs, Jr., states that “the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity may be a reference to a bout of insanity or lengthy depression in Nabonidus, who apparently was very unpopular in Babylon…” (TSR, Vol. 7.4, p. 8). This is the position held by many modern critical scholars today. Conservatives prefer a different explanation. Stephen Miller comments: “Some scholars have deemed this chapter primarily a fictional account, likely derived from the same source as the so-called `prayer of Nabonidus’ (4QPrBab), an Aramaic fragment discovered at Qumran in 1952 (D. N. Freedman, “The Prayer of Nabonidus,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Vol. 145, 1957, pp. 31-32). Though affinities exist between Daniel 4 and the “Prayer of Nabonidus,” they are far outweighed by the differences (e.g., name of the king, nature of the illness, and location). It seems reasonable to categorize the Nabonidus story as a distorted version or a later application of the biblical narrative” (p. 145).
Nevertheless, the critics insist there is no hint in the historical record that indicates it was Nebuchadnezzar with this strange case of madness that resulted in a seven-year absence. R. H. Pfeiffer called Daniel chapter four an “unhistorical tale,” and “a confused reminiscence of the years when Nabonidus spent at Tema in Arabia” (p. 758). Norman W. Porteous states, “indeed there is no record of Nebuchadnezzar’s having had leave of absence from his royal duties on account of insanity” (p. 70). However, later on the same page Porteous admits that fellow Bible critics Bevan, Montgomery, Bentzen, and Jeffrey have recorded such a story. Abydenus’s account is preserved by Eusebius (Praeparatio Evangelica, 9.41.1) and is reproduced by John A. Montgomery (p. 221).
Abydenus says that in the last days of Nebuchadnezzar, the king was “possessed by some god or other” while in his palace, and announced the coming of a Persian mule (i.e., Cyrus), who would bring the people into slavery. Then says Abydenus, “He, when he had uttered this prediction, immediately disappeared” (Praeparatio Evangelica,9.41.1). Surely Porteous is wrong to admit the existence of this story by the historian Abydenus, and at the same time insist that “there is no record of Nebuchadnezzar’s having had leave of absence from his royal duties…”
The third and fourth admissions concern linguistic arguments. Farrell Till asserts: “Bible fundamentalists like to think that Daniel was written in the sixth century B. C., shortly after the events that the book closes with during the reign of Cyrus the Great, who had conquered Babylon in 539 B.C. Few reputable Bible scholars, however, would fix the date that early, because the book exhibits signs of a much later authorship. Scholars cite the writer’s obvious confusion about political events of the time that a contemporary would have surely been familiar with, the linguistic style (especially the section written in Aramaic), and other factors too numerous to discuss in detail as evidence that the book was written at the extreme end of the Old Testament period (no sooner than the second century)” (TSR,Vol. 4.3, p. 13).
Dr. Samuel Driver also made much of the Aramaic of the Book of Daniel. he stated, “The Aramaic of Daniel (which is all but identical with that of Ezra) is a Western Aramaic dialect, of the type spoken in and about Palestine” (p. 59 of the introduction of Driver’s commentary on Daniel), and he went on to suggest that archaeology had confirmed this. However, Jeffrey admits that the Aramaic in the Book of Daniel “cannot be pressed as evidence for a particular date, for it is that type of Aramaic which grew up for official use in the chancelleries and came to be widely used in the ancient Near East” (p. 349). Jeffrey cites more recent discoveries of fifth-century Aramaic texts that totally discredit Driver’s view (Franz Rosenthal, Die Aramaistische Forschung, [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1939] pp. 66-71).
Till has highly recommended Jeffrey’s work on Daniel (TSR, Vol. 7.3, p. 3, and Vol 7.4, p. 8). According to Till, Jeffrey’s material “gives a detailed analysis of the Book of Daniel to show, first of all, that it was not written by its namesake who allegedly lived in Babylon during the captivity, but by an unknown author during the time of the Seleucid Empire, which arose from the partitioning of Alexander’s kingdom after his death” (TSR, Vol. 7.3, p. 3). Does Jeffrey’s work accomplish this feat? Let’s look at a couple of popular arguments that he uses.
The fourth admission by the critics concerns the term “Chaldeans.” Jeffrey argues: “The use of the word kasdim (Chaldeans), not in the proper ethnic sense which it has, for example, in Jeremiah, but to mean a caste of wise men, points to a time when the word was commonly used for a class of priestly astrologers, diviners, or magicians, a sense the word has in the pages of Strabo or Diodorus Siculus, who wrote in the first century B.C. (p. 349).
Dr. Driver agrees that the argument concerning the use of the term “Chaldeans” is very convincing. So much that he places it first in the list of his three strongest arguments that show that the book of Daniel was composed in Palestine “during the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes” (pp. 47-56 of the Introduction).
How strong is this argument? On page 12 of Driver’s commentary, Driver himself takes exceptions to some of the assertions made by Jeffrey. Driver admits that in Daniel 5:30, and 9:1 the author of the book of Daniel did use the ethnic sense of the word “Chaldeans.” Then on the same page Driver admits this term “Chaldeans” is found “in Herodotus (Herodotus, Histories, 1.181-183, c. 440 B.C.), and is common afterwards in the classical writers” (p. 12). Furthermore, Driver also admits that evidence indicates that such a group of wise men as pictured in the book of Daniel did exist as a group as early as 2000 B.C. (p. 14).
Francis Schaeffer summarized Driver’s argument: “Remember this is his first strong argument. he is going to take the book of Daniel and throw away its historical date on the basis of these `so-called’ strong arguments. Now we have defined this question in regard to the term “Chaldeans.” The writer knew the ethnic sense. This group did exist from a long time before. About 90 years later everybody acknowledges that the word was used in this sense to the wise men. And so he is going to throw away the book of Daniel and its dating and all that it means on the basis that this specific group of wise men, who were well known from long before and afterwards, were not called this term in this 90-year span (530 B.C. to 440 B.C.). Now, once you word it this way, it doesn’t look so strong” (Francis Schaeffer’s five part series, Dr. Driver’s Criticism of the Book of Daniel, tape #2).
Is it any wonder that the bible critic J.J. Collins admits that the author’s use of the term “Chaldeans” cannot be used to date his material (Daniel,Hermeneia, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994, pp. 137-138). In fact, Jeffrey makes a similar error in his commentary on Daniel 10:1. He states: “Cyrus is here called `king of Persia.’ This may be merely a statement of fact, for he was king of Persia, but if it is meant as an official title, it is an anachronism in the mouth of Daniel. The title ‘king of Persia’, was Hellenistic usage and not the usage of the Achaemenid kings at this time” (p. 500).
Jeffrey overlooked the fact that Robert Dick Wilson contradicted this view expressly with what he found in the tablets of the Persian period (Robert Dick Wilson, “The Title `King of Persia’ in the Scriptures,” The Princeton Theological Review, Vol. 15, 1917, pp. 90-145). Wilson commented: “It is evident therefore, that there are thirty-eight distinct extra-biblical instances of the use of this title from 545 to about 400 B.C.; and that these instances are found in twenty different works by nineteen different persons (p. 100).”
This argument of Jeffrey’s is completely put to flight concerning Daniel 10:1. It shows how much many of these scholars continue to repeat the same old arguments. No doubt, Jeffrey had read this argument in Driver’s commentary (p. 152), but he had failed to read the refutation provided by Wilson seventeen years later. I must admit that I have just repeated the arguments of others on occasion without taking a closer look at both sides of the argument. For example, I was guilty of making it appear that the interpretation of Daniel 5:7 is a simple matter. Driver says the verse should read, “Shall rule as one of three in the kingdom” (p. 64), but most conservative scholars claim the translation should be “the third highest ruler in the kingdom” (NIV). Conservatives claim this is an indirect reference to Nabonidus while the critics relate the passage to Daniel 6:2, which speaks of three rulers of equal rank and uses a similar word.
At first I sided with the conservatives, but after further investigation I must admit that I am undecided. What created doubts in my mind? It was the admission of three conservative scholars that the critics may be right on this verse. On 4-26-96, I wrote Dr. Robert L. Alden about this verse. He responded: “I looked up both Wood and Young as well as a couple [of] other commentaries on Daniel. I also looked over the Aramaic original just to see what the syntax of the verse was. I understand the reason for the differences of opinion that you have discovered and am not sure which side of the log I fall off. Perhaps the concluding sentence at the end of the first paragraph in E.J. Young’s commentary is best, `but probably it is not to be too dogmatic concerning the precise meaning of this word….’ Incidently [sic] I had E. J. Young when I was a student at Westminster Theological Seminary 1959- 1962. And I worked with Leon Wood on the translation of the NIV.”
Earlier I thought I had a lot of ammunition with the admission by critics W. Sibley Towner and R.A. Anderson that the conservatives had the translation of Daniel 5:7 correct (W. Sibley Towner, Daniel, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Atlanta: John Knox, 1984, p. 73; R. A. Anderson, Signs and Wonders, International Theological Commentary, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984, p. 57). However, now I don’t think it is wise to press the issue.
Nevertheless, there are two other issues in this chapter that I will press, and they both concern Belshazzar. In the article “Daniel in the Historians’ Den,” William Sierichs, Jr., states that Belshazzar was not the “son” of Nebuchadnezzar, and “Belshazzar was not the ruler as the Book of Daniel claims, and he was never king” (TSR, Vol. 7.4, p. 8).
These are two of the most common arguments used against the book of Daniel, but even the radical critic, Dr. Philip R. Davies has admitted that both are “weak arguments” (Philip R. Davies, Daniel,Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985, p. 31). He stated: “Critical commentaries, especially around the turn of the century, made much of the fact that Belshazzar was neither a son of Nebuchadnezzar, nor king of Babylon. This is still sometimes repeated as a charge against the historicity of Daniel, and resisted by conservative scholars. But it has been clear since 1924 (J.A. Montgomery, Daniel, International Critical Commentary, Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1927, pp. 66-67) that although Nabonidus was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty, Belshazzar was effectively ruling Babylon. In this respect, then, Daniel is correct. The literal meaning of son should not be pressed” (pp. 30-31).
I call Davies a radical critic because he refuses to accept the archaeological evidence that indicates that king David existed (Philip R. Davies, “`House of David’ built on Sand,” Biblical Archaeology Review,July/August 1994, pp. 54-55), and more recently he suggested that Hezekiah’s tunnel was not dug by Hezekiah’s men when the Bible claims, but was constructed centuries later. However, several eminent archaeologists put this reinterpretation to rest (“Defusing Pseudo-Scholarship,” Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1997, pp. 41-50). For Davies to concede anything, it must really be self-evident. Therefore, I put forth his admissions as especially meaningful. Furthermore, Davies does not accept the same view that Till and Sierichs do concerning the date of the authorship of the first six chapters of Daniel.
In the 19th century the consensus among Bible critics was that all of the chapters of Daniel were written in Palestine during the 2nd century B.C. However, in the 20th century most of the critics admit the first six chapters could have been written as early as the 6th century B.C. in Babylon. Philip R. Davies comments, “According to nearly every modern commentator, the tales of chapter 1-6 are originally products of a Jewish community in a Gentile environment” (Philip R. Davies, “Eschatology in the Book of Daniel,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Vol. 17, 1980, p. 33).
Could it be that the archaeological, linguistic, and historical evidence concerning Daniel will lead next century’s critics to consider the traditional theological view? This reminds me of an amazing quote from the astronomer Dr. Robert Jastrow: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries” (Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, New York: Warner Books, 1978, p. 111).
(Everette Hatcher III,
—
Francis Schaeffer
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31 The sayings of King Lemuel contain this message,[a] which his mother taught him.
2 O my son, O son of my womb, O son of my vows, 3 do not waste your strength on women, on those who ruin kings.
4 It is not for kings, O Lemuel, to guzzle wine. Rulers should not crave alcohol. 5 For if they drink, they may forget the law and not give justice to the oppressed. 6 Alcohol is for the dying, and wine for those in bitter distress. 7 Let them drink to forget their poverty and remember their troubles no more.
8 Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. 9 Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice.
A Wife of Noble Character
10 [b]Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies. 11 Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life. 12 She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.
13 She finds wool and flax and busily spins it. 14 She is like a merchant’s ship, bringing her food from afar. 15 She gets up before dawn to prepare breakfast for her household and plan the day’s work for her servant girls.
16 She goes to inspect a field and buys it; with her earnings she plants a vineyard. 17 She is energetic and strong, a hard worker. 18 She makes sure her dealings are profitable; her lamp burns late into the night.
19 Her hands are busy spinning thread, her fingers twisting fiber. 20 She extends a helping hand to the poor and opens her arms to the needy. 21 She has no fear of winter for her household, for everyone has warm[c] clothes.
22 She makes her own bedspreads. She dresses in fine linen and purple gowns. 23 Her husband is well known at the city gates, where he sits with the other civic leaders. 24 She makes belted linen garments and sashes to sell to the merchants.
25 She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future. 26 When she speaks, her words are wise, and she gives instructions with kindness. 27 She carefully watches everything in her household and suffers nothing from laziness.
28 Her children stand and bless her. Her husband praises her: 29 “There are many virtuous and capable women in the world, but you surpass them all!”
30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised. 31 Reward her for all she has done. Let her deeds publicly declare her praise.
Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights the afflicted and needy. (Proverbs 31:8-9)
It is a tendency born out of our natural self-centeredness. If not careful, we tend to make decisions based merely on how it will help us—advance our cause or comfort. We do this as individuals and we can do it as nations.
Tragically, the most vulnerable are those who cannot defend themselves, such as children. The most helpless, as we have discovered, are the unborn. In 2019, over 850,000 babies were aborted in the United States and somewhere between 40 and 50 million worldwide. That equates to 125,000 babies every single day.
OUR SELF-ABSORBED RATIONALE
No nation has been this pagan and cruel and survived. We have found a way to rationalize this in our own minds. “It’s in the best interest of the mother” is our usual excuse. But there is nowhere else in human relationships that such a horrific answer would stand. “Well, my parents are old and it’s hard for me to take care of them, so I’ll kill them so it won’t inconvenience me.” We shudder at such logic, yet it is identical to our thinking regarding the killing of defenseless babies in the womb.
Another sad justification is the idea that the baby is not really a life. It’s why the word “fetus” is used by some, never “child.” The baby is never spoken of as “one made in the image of God.” Or, “my new son or grandson,” or, the “child who will grow to adulthood and make a massive influence in the lives of those around them.” Such descriptions would move this sin from the impersonal to the personal.
The foundation of all of these excuses if that we want to be God. Sometimes even unconciously, we decide that we are wiser than God and we usurp His throne. We were never meant to take that authority from His hands. And the results are always disastrous.
OUR HOPE
Thankfully there are millions across America that are obeying this verse in Proverbs 31—a chapter that also praises the virtues of godly women. People by the millions are rising up to defend the rights of the unborn. In recent years the number of abortions has decreased. But we should not cease until we have completely eradicated this scourge from our land.
Until then, we must “open our mouths for the mute and for the rights of all the unfortunate.” To fail to do so would ignore one of our most important tasks.
Father, forgive us for justifying such sin in our midst. And forgive us for our silence. Help us open our mouths and never cease until this wrong is corrected. And Lord, move the hearts of millions in our land to see this for what it really is and help us repent.
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ailed on 7-17-16)
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Mark Henry, teaching pastor Fellowship Bible Church, Little Rock, AR
Hugh and brother Keith with their parents
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July 10, 2016
Hugh Hefner Playboy Mansion 10236 Charing Cross Road Los Angeles, CA 90024-1815
Dear Mr. Hefner,
Today at FELLOWSHIP BIBLE CHURCH our teaching pastor Mark Henry taught on I Corinthians 13 which is known as the love chapter.
In your interview with R. Couri Hay which is on You Tube at the 10 min mark you asserted:
There is no correlation between age and being a bunny at all. There is however something called BUNNY IMAGE. We do pick the girls on the basis of their attractiveness. Attractiveness does begin to change with age.
Also in the last few years you asserted, “The best part of any relationship is the beginning.” You can see how I thought of you when I recently saw the movie UP on DVD. The beginning of the movie showed the 70 years that Carl and Ellie spent together in a 4 minute summary and it contrasted in my mind with your words. It is clear that their love GREW over the years and did not diminish.
A couple of years ago I took my son to see the Pixar animated movie Up about the last adventure of a 78-year-old balloon salesman named Carl Fredricksen. I thought I was going to see a fun story. I wasn’t prepared for one poignant, four-minute scene.
The scene is wordless. The vignette starts with a brief glimpse of Carl and Ellie’s wedding day, and then moves to their first home and first jobs. The couple race up a grassy hill together, then look up at the sky and imagine pictures forming in the clouds. Then the clouds are all shaped like babies, and then Carl and Ellie are painting a nursery together. It’s an idyllic look at young love and marriage.
But this isn’t an idyllic life. The scene shifts to Carl and Ellie in a hospital room with pre-natal diagrams on the walls. A doctor is talking and gesturing. Ellie is weeping into her hands. Next, Carl comforts his wife by reminding her of an old dream they shared when they were children—traveling to a place called Paradise Falls together. Rejuvenated, Ellie creates a dream jar labeled “Paradise Falls,” and into the jar goes all of the young couple’s spare money.
Again, however, life happens. First their car pops a tire. Then Carl visits the hospital. Then a tree falls and damages the roof of their home. Each of these inconveniences necessitates the dream jar be smashed and the money spent. Soon, Carl and Ellie have gray in their hair. And in a flash they become elderly.
Near the end of the vignette, Carl remembers their dream of visiting Paradise Falls, and he purchases two tickets from a travel agency. But Ellie collapses on her way back up the grassy hill from their youth. We see her in a hospital bed, with Carl holding her hand and kissing her forehead. Then we see Carl sitting alone at the front of a church. He holds a solitary balloon in his hand. The vignette closes as Carl carries the balloon into his house, which has turned cold and gray. The balloon is a lone spot of color against the gloom, and then everything fades to black. In four minutes you see a lifetime come and go.
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The main point that I wanted to make from the film UP is that Carl and Ellie’s love grew over the decades. I think you are really missing the point about love and what it means.
In his sermon LOVE IS GREATER Mark Henry used a married couple in our church as an example of true love. Lloyd Menning and his wife Dorothy have been married for 69 years. Dorothy had a stroke six years ago and Lloyd had to quit his job so he could take care of her, but she still comes to a weekly Bible Study at the church. Lloyd pushes her to the church every week and then he spends a couple of hours filling the vending machines in the church. Lloyd has demonstrated a love that “bears all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.” A 4 minute video showing these events was shown at the close of the service today and in the background Lloyd was reading I Corinthians 13. (Lloyd actually reads the Bible to Dorothy everyday.) Below are the words:
1 Corinthians 13 English Standard Version (ESV)
The Way of Love
13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith,so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b]6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
HUGH lets examine your words again:
There is no correlation between age and being a bunny at all. There is however something called BUNNY IMAGE. We do pick the girls on the basis of their attractiveness. Attractiveness does begin to change with age.
WHAT IS TRUE BEAUTY? Proverbs shows what a beautiful wife looks like and it has nothing to do with the outward appearance and everything to do with the inward appearance of the heart!!!
Proverbs 31:10-31 English Standard Version (ESV)
The Woman Who Fears the Lord
10 [a] An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. 11 The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. 12 She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. 13 She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands. 14 She is like the ships of the merchant; she brings her food from afar. 15 She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens. 16 She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. 17 She dresses herself[b] with strength and makes her arms strong. 18 She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. 19 She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle. 20 She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. 21 She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet.[c] 22 She makes bed coverings for herself; her clothing is fine linen and purple. 23 Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. 24 She makes linen garments and sells them; she delivers sashes to the merchant. 25 Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. 26 She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. 27 She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. 28 Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 29 “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” 30 Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. 31 Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.
HUGH, grace is always available to anyone who asks. Your mother’s name was Grace and if she was here right now she would be thrilled if you took the time to see what the Bible says about salvation and forgiveness. It can be summed up in FOUR SPIRITUAL LAWS.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life,” (John 3:16).
Man is sinful and separated from God.
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Rom. 3:23). “For the wages of sin is death,” (Rom. 6:23). “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God,” (Isaiah 59:2).
Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin.
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me,” (John 14:6). “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” (Rom. 5:8).
We must individually receive Jesus as Savior and Lord.
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,” (John 1:12). “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved,” (Rom. 10:9). “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,” (Eph. 2:8).
PS: This is the 42nd letter I have written to you and again I have taken an aspect of your life and responded with what the Bible has to say on that subject.
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Francis Schaeffer has rightly noted concerning Hugh Hefner that Hefner’s goal with the “playboy mentality is just to smash the puritanical ethnic.” I have made the comparison throughout this series of blog posts between Hefner and King Solomon (the author of the BOOK of ECCLESIASTES). I have noticed that many preachers who have delivered sermons on Ecclesiastes have also mentioned Hefner as a modern day example of King Solomon especially because they both tried to find sexual satisfaction through the volume of women you could slept with in a lifetime.
Ecclesiastes 2:8-10 The Message (MSG)
I piled up silver and gold, loot from kings and kingdoms. I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song, and—most exquisite of all pleasures— voluptuous maidens for my bed.
9-10 Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!
1 Kings 11:1-3 English Standard Version (ESV)
11 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love.3 He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.
Francis Schaeffer observed concerning Solomon, “You can not know woman by knowing 1000 women.”
Eric Winkler was born in 1981 in Livingston, New Jersey, and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. An illustrator and comic artist, Winkler often renders in drawings his friend and collaborator Bryan Zanisnik’s outlandish stories of the art world. Self-deprecating and playful, Winkler’s comics are hand-drawn in black ink and invite viewers to consider the sometimes bizarre nature of the real world.
Ecclesiastes 2-3 Published on Sep 19, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 16, 2012 | Derek Neider _____________________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Is Love All You Need? Jesus v. Lennon Posted on January 19, 2011 by Jovan Payes 0 On June 25, 1967, the Beatles participated in the first worldwide TV special called “Our World”. During this special, the Beatles introduced “All You Need is Love”; one of their most famous and recognizable songs. In it, John Lennon […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
___________________ Something happened to the Beatles in their journey through the 1960’s and although they started off wanting only to hold their girlfriend’s hand it later evolved into wanting to smash all previous sexual standards. The Beatles: Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? _______ Beatle Ringo Starr, and his girlfriend, later his wife, […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
__________ Marvin Minsky __ I was sorry recently to learn of the passing of one of the great scholars of our generation. I have written about Marvin Minsky several times before in this series and today I again look at a letter I wrote to him in the last couple of years. It is my […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Why was Tony Curtis on the cover of SGT PEPPERS? I have no idea but if I had to hazard a guess I would say that probably it was because he was in the smash hit SOME LIKE IT HOT. Above from the movie SOME LIKE IT HOT __ __ Jojo was a man who […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
A federal judge has ruled that gender dysphoria is a disability that must be accommodated under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Pictured: A sign for an “All Gender Restroom” with symbols for men, those who consider themselves transgender, and women. (Photo: Thomas Faull, iStock/Getty Images)
In a shocking and first-of-its-kind reading of a more than 30-year-old disability law, a federal judge ruled that the distress that results from a person feeling that he or she is the wrong sex is a disability that must be accommodated under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
If the opinion is left to stand, it would open the door for those who consider themselves transgender and feel clinically distressed to receive public accommodations in bathrooms, locker rooms, prisons, same-sex housing, and more.
U.S. Circuit Judge Diana Gribbon Motz of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote the majority opinion for the divided three-judge panel in Williams v. Kincaid, holding that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, gender dysphoria is a “disability.” Judge Pamela Harris joined Motz’s opinion to form the majority.
The ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including employment, education, transportation, and in places that are open to the general public (public accommodations).
So, what is the practical impact of this decision? It means that those with gender dysphoria—an “incongruence between (someone’s) gender identity and assigned sex” that results in “clinically significant distress,” as the American Psychiatric Association defines it—are not only protected from discrimination because of that so-called disability, but they are entitled to reasonable accommodations for it.
In the case of former Fairfax County, Virginia, prisoner Kesha Williams, that “reasonable accommodation” should have, according to the court, included sending Williams (a biological male) back into the women’s prison. Williams had filed a disability discrimination claim against various prison employees alleging mistreatment while incarcerated.
However, in order to reach this conclusion, the majority had to clear one very big hurdle: the language of the ADA itself, which explicitly excludes:
(a) Homosexuality and bisexuality
For purposes of the definition of “disability” in section 12102(2)?[1] of this title, homosexuality and bisexuality are not impairments and as such are not disabilities under this chapter.
(b) Certain conditions
Under this chapter, the term “disability” shall not include—
(1) transvestism, transsexualism, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments, or other sexual behavior disorders.
Because the statute clearly eliminates disability protections for “gender identity disorder,” Motz engaged in a contorted legal analysis to determine that gender dysphoria was not actually a gender identity disorder. To reach that conclusion, she did not look to the statute’s language at the time of its enactment, but to a much more recent change on gender-related psychiatric diagnoses—one not envisioned, anticipated, or incorporated by the ADA’s original drafters in 1990.
Motz relied heavily on a change made by the American Psychiatric Association in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, or DSM-5, in 2013. The DSM-5 is the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental health professionals in the United States.
At that time, the APA replaced “gender identity disorder” with “gender dysphoria.” Because the change focused the diagnosis on the distress that some people who consider themselves transgender experience (and for which they may seek psychiatric, medical, and surgical treatments) instead of on a desire to be a gender other than the one they were born to, Motz determined that such a change was good enough to stretch the ADA well beyond the limits of what Congress determined it ought to originally bear.
She wrote:
In sum, the APA’s removal of the ”gender identity disorder” diagnosis and the addition of the ”gender dysphoria” diagnosis to the DSM-5 reflected a significant shift in medical understanding. The obsolete diagnosis focused solely on cross-gender identification; the modern one on clinically significant distress … Put simply, while the older DSM pathologized the very existence of transgender people, the recent DSM-5’s diagnosis of gender dysphoria takes as a given that being transgender is not a disability and affirms that a transgender person’s medical needs are just as deserving of treatment and protection as anyone else’s.
In sum: If you’re “distressed” about being transgender, then you’re entitled to all the accommodations you’d like in public life, whether in bathrooms, locker rooms, prisons, or same-sex housing. The illogical conclusion, of course, is that transgender individuals who might be perfectly at ease with their underlying biological sex are not entitled to accommodations at all. As to how this will play out in modern America, one thing is for sure: It will be messy.
The court has not only established the possibility that employers, schools, prisons, hospitals, and other entities will have to make judgment calls on when an accommodation is required and when it isn’t, it also creates a loophole for those who consider themselves transgender who might want to demand future accommodations but who may not, in reality, experience any distress at all.
In his well-reasoned dissent, Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum pointed out that the case was really a matter of simple statutory construction, and that the majority’s ruling wasn’t supported by the law’s text when it was enacted.
He wrote:
As Williams notes, some organizations have removed the phrase gender identity disorder from their publications altogether and clarified that distress and discomfort from identifying with a different gender from the gender assigned at birth constitutes gender dysphoria, not a gender identity disorder. But even if Williams is correct about such changes in understanding, linguistic drift cannot alter the meaning of words in the ADA when it was enacted. And at that time, the meaning of gender identity disorders included gender dysphoria as alleged by Williams … Under basic principles of statutory construction, Williams’ ADA claim should be dismissed … [W]hen the ADA was signed into law, gender identity disorder was understood to include what Williams alleges to be gender dysphoria.
While the decision only directly covers those entities within the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, and West Virginia), the court’s opinion has fanned the flames of controversy over transgender rights on a greater scale. It is also a prime example of why textualism—the interpretation of the law based on the ordinary meaning of the words as they were understood at the time of the law’s enactment—matters.
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The Woke Zone Trilogy
John Stossel takes up for Babylon Bee and notes “Even a few left-leaning comedians like Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle are mocking the intolerant left!”
Late night hosts like Stephen Colbert, seen speaking during the Montclair Film Festival on Oct. 23, passionately defend leftists to the point of lecturing, rather than providing comedic relief. (Photo: Manny Carabel/Getty Images)
A woman tells the cop who stopped her in a carpool lane she’s allowed to drive there because her pronouns are “they” and “them.”
That’s from a video by a conservative Christian satire site called the Babylon Bee. Their humor gets millions of views.
“Christian conservatives used to … be very dour and self-serious,” says Bee editor-in-chief Kyle Mann in my new video.
Today, he says, it’s the left who are self-serious. “They’re the ones that have trouble laughing at themselves.”
For example, late night hosts like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert passionately defend COVID-19 vaccines.
“It is a lecture,” complains Mann.
“The left used to be anti-establishment,” adds Bee actress Chandler Juliet. Now, she says, ‘They’ve become the blob. … We’re super happy to be leading the comedic conversation on the right.”
One Babylon Bee video, “The Woke Zone,” makes fun of the way the media ignored violence and arson during the George Floyd protests.
“Do you ever feel gratitude to the left that they give you so much material?” I ask.
“We have to write things that are funnier than things they’re actually doing,” Mann responds. “That makes our job very difficult.”
One Bee sketch portrays its writers struggling to find new material.
“John Kerry warns that the war in Ukraine might distract from climate change!” suggests one.
Can’t do it, explains another. “It actually happened.” Yes, Kerry really did say that.
“Cosmo magazine features a morbidly obese woman on the cover as the picture of health” and, “Math professor says ‘two plus two equals four’ is racist!” are among other ideas that can’t be used as jokes.
“A math professor really said two plus two equals four is racist?” I ask.
It’s “a colonialist, white supremacist idea,” explains Mann.
Today the Bee reaches more people than The Onion. The establishment doesn’t like that, so some people actually sic so-called fact checkers on the Bee.
One article fact-checked by Snopes was titled, “Bernie Sanders Vows To Round Up Remaining ISIS Members, Allow Them To Vote.”
“Does Snopes not understand that you’re making jokes?” I ask.
“I think that they know what our intention is,” answers Juliet. “They just don’t like us.”
Recently, Twitter banned the Bee. Their offense was tweeting an article that named Assistant Secretary of Health Rachel Levine “Babylon Bee’s Man of the Year.”
Levine is a transgender woman. Calling her the man of the year is a joke I wouldn’t make. But it doesn’t need to be censored.
Twitter says they’ll allow the Bee back on the platform only if they delete the tweet. Mann says he won’t.
“Twitter has the capability to just delete the tweet themselves. They want us to bend the knee and be the ones to click, ‘Yes, we acknowledge hateful conduct.’ We’re not going to do that.”
Today, a lot of comedians attract sizable audiences by mocking the left. Some I found funny are JP Sears, Ryan Long and FreedomToons.
The culture is changing.
The highest rating late-night comic these days is often not Colbert, Kimmel or Fallon, but Greg Gutfeld of Fox.
Even a few left-leaning comedians like Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle are mocking the intolerant left.
“I talk about AIDS, famine, cancer, the Holocaust, rape, pedophilia … the one thing you mustn’t joke about is identity politics,” says Gervais in his recent Netflix special.
Professional media critics trashed him for that. But the special was hugely popular with the public.
The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are revealing. Critics gave Gervais’ special a 29% rating, calling it “terribly unfunny” and “a detestable combination of smug and obtuse.”
Viewers gave it a 92% rating.
The same is true of Chapelle’s latest special, “The Closer.” Critics give it just 40%. The audience gives it 95%.
Clearly, many people are tired of smug, condescending humor.
I’m glad the Babylon Bee, and others, give us an alternative.
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After Life 2 – Man identifies as an 8 year old girl
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Before I get into the fine article by Brendan O’Neill which I present in its entirety, I wanted to quote Francis Schaeffer who spent his life examining the humanism that now Ricky Gervais embraces!
All humans have moral motions and that is why Ricky Gervais knows it is wrong to let biological men use ladies’ bathrooms!!!!!!
“[in Christianity] there is a sufficient basis for morals. Nobody has ever discovered a way of having real “morals” without a moral absolute. If there is no moral absolute, we are left with hedonism (doing what I like) or some form of the social contract theory (what is best for society as a a hole is right). However, neither of these alternative corresponds to the moral motions that men have. Talk to people long enough and deeply enough, and you will find that they consider some things are really right and something are really wrong. Without absolutes, morals as morals cease to exist, and humanistic mean starting from himself is unable to find the absolute he needs. But because the God of the Bible is there, real morals exist. Within this framework I can say one action is right and another wrong, without talking nonsense.” 117
Francis Schaeffer in the film WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?
He has mocked identity politics – the god of our times
I have long thought that if Life of Brian came out today, it wouldn’t be Christians kicking up a fuss about it — it would be trans activists.
When Monty Python’s classic tale of a man mistaken for a Messiah came to cinemas in 1979, people of faith weren’t happy. They saw it as taking the mick out of Christ and they aired their displeasure noisily. Nuns in New York picketed cinemas. In Ireland the film was banned for eight years.
In 2022 I reckon it would be a very different story. It wouldn’t be Monty Python’s ribbing of the gospels that would outrage the chattering classes — it would be their mockery of trans people.
Life of Brian was way ahead of time. It was Terf before Terf was even a thing. There is a brilliantly observed scene in which Stan of the People’s Front of Judea — or is it the Judean People’s Front? — says he wants to become Loretta.
‘I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me Loretta’, says Stan, played by Eric Idle. When the others push back and say he can’t just become a woman, he says: ‘It’s my right as a man.’ Which was remarkably perspicacious.
‘I want to have babies’, says Stan / Loretta. ‘You can’t have babies! You haven’t got a womb!’, barks John Cleese’s Reg. Transphobic or what? To calm things down, Francis (Michael Palin) says they should accept Stan’s desire to be Loretta as being ‘symbolic of our struggle against oppression’. ‘Symbolic of his struggle against reality…’ Reg mutters.
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Imagine if a film or TV show did something like that today. Showed an aspiring ‘trans woman’ being mocked for not having the right body parts to be a woman. Showed a man who wants to be a woman being told — for laughs, remember — that the only thing he’s struggling against is reality.
The cancel-culture mob would kick into action. There’d be a Change.org petition, maybe even a physical protest outside the offices of the production company or streaming service that was foolish enough to broadcast such trans-poking humour. ‘Jokes kill!’, we would be told, day and night.
Hell, JK Rowling can’t even very politely say ‘men aren’t women’ without being subjected to weeks of hatred and violent threats — so heaven help the film company that tried to air a Stan / Loretta skit in these febrile times.
This week, my theory about Life of Brianin 2022 was kind of proven right. For we had the pretty extraordinary sight of Ricky Gervais getting a very free ride for his God-mocking while being dragged into the Twitter stocks for his gags about trans issues.
In his new Netflix special SuperNature, Gervais vents his atheistic spleen. The Christian God is cruel and perverted, he says. Those Christian fundamentalists who believe Aids is the Almighty’s way of punishing gay sex clearly believe in a God who’s up in heaven thinking, ‘I’m sick of all this bumming’. And so just as God once said ‘Let there be light’, according to Gervais in the 1980s He said, ‘Let there be Aids’. What a rotter.
This isn’t the first time Gervais has made fun of God and those who believe in him. He’s famously an atheist. He talks about it all the time. (Rather too much, in my view.) But God-bashing is fine these days. Cool, even. Christians tend to take it in their stride. Believers have mostly kept their counsel following Gervais’s latest mockery of their wicked, ridiculous God.
The same cannot be said of trans activists and their allies. Not even remotely. They have responded with fury to Gervais’s blasphemy against the new god of genderfluidity.
He’s been called all the usual names. Transphobe, Terf, bigot. His crime? Choosing not to adhere to the ideology of transgenderism, daring to dissent from that pseudo-religious mantra we are all now pressured into saying: ‘Trans women are women.’
What’s funny about this spittle-flecked response to Gervais’s trans jokes is that he was really only saying what trans activists themselves have said. He had a bit on ‘old-fashioned women’ — ‘you know, the ones with wombs’ — complaining about born males using their bathrooms. ‘What if he rapes me?’, these women say. To which Gervais, playing the trans activist, responds: ‘What if she rapes you, you… Terf whore.’
Cutting, yes. But also incredibly accurate. Some police forces and courts do indeed refer to rapists as ‘she’ and ‘her’, if that’s how they identify. And, as feminists have pointed out, this results in rape victims being pressured to refer to their rapist with female pronouns. As for the language, anyone who has spent more than five minutes online in recent years will know that that kind of thing is said to gender-critical women all the time.
Like all great blasphemous comics, Gervais is merely shining a light on things that really are said, and things which really do happen, and inviting us, his audience, to laugh and say: ‘Yeah, that is kind of ridiculous.’ Much as Monty Python did with the Bible, in fact.
But, say Gervais’s humourless critics, while the likes of Monty Python were punching up — against God, no less — Gervais is punching down, against vulnerable, marginalised trans people. I don’t buy this at all. Gervais has made it clear that he fully supports rights for trans people. His issue is with the excesses of trans activism and the authoritarianism of identity politics more broadly.
‘I talk about Aids, famine, cancer, the Holocaust, rape, paedophilia’, he says in SuperNature. ‘But no, the one thing you mustn’t joke about is identity politics.’
Absolutely. And that’s because identitarianism is the god of our times. It’s the new religion of the elites, their means of controlling and reprimanding the masses. Ridiculing identity politics is to the 21st century what questioning the authority of God was to the 15th. The woke rage against Gervais really does echo earlier outbursts of intolerant religious fury against anyone who dared to dissent from the Word of God.
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I was referred this subject by a tweet by Daniel Dennett which referenced a fine article by Robyn E. Blumner in defense of her boss at the RICHARD DAWKINS FOUNDATION and you can read my response at this link.
Ricky Gervais is a secular humanist just like his good friend Richard Dawkins and it is the humanists who have bought into this trans-identity politics and as a result the AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION has stripped Dawkins of his 1996 HUMANIST OF THE YEAR award.
As an evangelical I have had the opportunity to correspond with more more secular humanists that have signed the Humanist Manifestos than any other evangelical alive (at least that has been one of my goals since reading Francis Schaeffer’s books and watching his films since 1979).
Let me make a few points about Ricky personally and then a few about this comedy routine by the secular humanist Ricky Gervais.
Notice below in AFTER LIFE how he suspects Anne of being a Christian when she tells him “We are not just here for us. We are here for others,“
Ricky Gervais and Penelope Wilton in ‘After Life’ (CREDIT: Netflix)
(Above) Tony (played by Ricky) and Anne on the bench at the graveyard where their spouses are buried.
In the fourth episode of season 1 of AFTER LIFE is the following discussion between Anne and Tony:
Tony: My brother-in-law wants me to try dating again.
Anne: Oh excellent! You need some tips.
Tony: why would I need some tips?
Anne: I imagine you are awful with women…Well all men are awful with women but grumpy selfish ones are the worst.
Tony: Let me take notes. This is dynamite.
Tony: I would just be honest. Tell them my situation and tell them what I am going through. Be honest up front.
Anne: So it is all about you then?
Tony: I can’t win can I? I don’t want to date again. I don’t want to live without Lisa.
Anne: But is not just about you is it? That is what I am saying. What if a nice date made her feel good? That might feel nice right? We are just here for us. We are here for others.
Tony: I don’t do the whole God thing I am afraid.
Anne: Neither do I. It is a load of rubbish. All we got is each other. We have to help each other struggle until we die then we are done. No point in felling sorry for ourselves and making everyone else unhappy too. Might as [kill] yourself if you feel that bad.
Tony: Are you sure you want to work for the Samaritans?
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Christ came to this world and his followers have changed this world for the better more than any other group that ever existed. When Anne makes the assertions, “But is not just about you is it? That is what I am saying. What if a nice date made her feel good? That might feel nice right? We are not just here for us. We are here for others,” Tony assumes she is a Christian.
If you found yourself in a dark alley late at night, with a group of rough-looking, burly young men walking swiftly toward you, would you feel better knowing they were coming from a Bible study?
If we are only cosmic accidents, how can there be any meaning in our lives? If this is true, which it is in an atheistic world view, our lives are for nothing. It would not matter in the slightest bit if I ever existed. This is why the atheist, if honest and consistent, must face death with despair. Their life is for nothing. Once they are gone, they are gone forever.
I highly recommend Ricky Gervais series AFTER LIFE which is running on NETFLIX because it reminds me of King Solomon trying to find meaning in life UNDER THE SUN without God in the picture!!!
God put Solomon’s story in Ecclesiastes in the Bible with the sole purpose of telling people like Ricky that without God in the picture you will find out the emptiness one feels when possessions are trying to fill the void that God can only fill.
‘I want to have babies’, says Stan / Loretta. ‘You can’t have babies! You haven’t got a womb!’, barks John Cleese’s Reg. Transphobic or what? To calm things down, Francis (Michael Palin) says they should accept Stan’s desire to be Loretta as being ‘symbolic of our struggle against oppression’. ‘Symbolic of his struggle against reality…’ Reg mutters….
He’s been called all the usual names. Transphobe, Terf, bigot. His crime? Choosing not to adhere to the ideology of transgenderism, daring to dissent from that pseudo-religious mantra we are all now pressured into saying: ‘Trans women are women.’
What’s funny about this spittle-flecked response to Gervais’s trans jokes is that he was really only saying what trans activists themselves have said. He had a bit on ‘old-fashioned women’ — ‘you know, the ones with wombs’ — complaining about born males using their bathrooms. ‘What if he rapes me?’, these women say. To which Gervais, playing the trans activist, responds: ‘What if she rapes you, you… Terf whore.’
Ricky is trying to use common sense (through sarcasm) on people that “GOD GAVE…OVER to depraved [minds]. Romans 1 states:
26 For this reason (M)GOD GAVE THEM OVER to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural…
28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, GOD GAVE THEM OVER to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are…inventors of evil,
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Francis Schaeffer later in this blog post discusses what the unbelievers in Romans 1 were rejecting, but first John MacArthur discusses what the unbelievers in the Democratic Party today are affirming and how these same activities were condemned 2000 years ago in Romans 1.
Christians Cannot And MUST Not Vote Democrat – John MacArthur
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A Democrat witness testifying before the HouseJudiciary Committee on abortion rights Thursday declared that men can get pregnant and have abortions. This reminds of Romans chapter 1 and also John MacArthur’s commentary on the 2022 Agenda of the Democratic Party:
25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator…26 For this reason (M)GOD GAVE THEM OVER to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, GOD GAVE THEM OVER to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are…inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; 32 but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
Now, all of a sudden, not only is this characteristic of our nation, but we now promote it. One of the parties, the Democratic Party, has now made Romans 1, the sins of Romans 1, their agenda. What God condemns, they affirm.
I know from last week’s message that there was some response from people who said, “Why are you getting political?”
Romans 1 is not politics. This has to do with speaking the Word of God through the culture in which we live….it’s about iniquity and judgment. And why do we say this? Because this must be recognized for what it is–sin, serious sin, damning sin, destructive sin.
Dem witness tells House committee men can get pregnant, have abortions
‘I believe that everyone can identify for themselves,’ Aimee Arrambide tells House Judiciary Committee
A Democrat witness testifying before the HouseJudiciary Committee on abortion rights Thursday declared that men can get pregnant and have abortions.
Aimee Arrambide, the executive director of the abortion rights nonprofit Avow Texas, was asked by Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., to define what “a woman is,” to which she responded, “I believe that everyone can identify for themselves.”
“Do you believe that men can become pregnant and have abortions?” Bishop asked.
“Yes,” Arrambide replied.
The remarks from Arrambide followed a tense exchange between Bishop and Dr. Yashica Robinson, another Democrat witness, after he similarly asked her to define “woman.”
Aimee Arrambide testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on May 11, 2020. (YouTube screenshot) (Screenshot/ House Committee on the Judiciary)
“Dr. Robinson, I noticed in your written testimony you said that you use she/her pronouns. You’re a medical doctor – what is a woman?” Bishop asked Robinson, an OBGYN and board member with Physicians for Reproductive Health.
“I think it’s important that we educate people like you about why we’re doing the things that we do,” Robinson responded. “And so the reason that I use she and her pronouns is because I understand that there are people who become pregnant that may not identify that way. And I think it is discriminatory to speak to people or to call them in such a way as they desire not to be called.”
“Are you going to answer my question? Can you answer the question, what’s a woman?” Bishop asked.
Donna Howard and Aimee Arrambide speaks at Making Virtual Storytelling and Activism Personal during the 2022 SXSW Conference and Festivals at Austin Convention Center on March 14, 2022 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Hubert Vestil/Getty Images for SXSW)
“I’m a woman, and I will ask you which pronouns do you use?” Robinson replied. “If you tell me that you use she and her pronouns … I’m going to respect you for how you want me to address you.”
“So you gave me an example of a woman, you say that you are a woman, can you tell me otherwise what a woman is?” Bishop asked.
“Yes, I’m telling you, I’m a woman,” Robinson responded.
“Is that as comprehensive a definition as you can give me?” Bishop asked.
“That’s as comprehensive a definition as I will give you today,” Robinson said. “Because I think that it’s important that we focus on what we’re here for, and it’s to talk about access to abortion.”
“So you’re not interested in answering the question that I asked unless it’s part of a message you want to deliver…” Bishop fired back.
Wednesday’s hearing, titled, “Revoking your Rights,” addressed the threat to abortion rights after the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion signaled the high court is poised to soon strike down Roe v. Wade.
John MacArthur explains God’s Wrath on unrighteousness from Romans Chapt…
18 For (A)the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who (B)suppress the truth [a]in unrighteousness, 19 because (C)that which is known about God is evident [b]within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For (D)since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, (E)being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21 For even though they knew God, they did not [c]honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became (F)futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 (G)Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and (H)exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and [d]crawling creatures.
24 Therefore (I)God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be (J)dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for [e]a (K)lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, (L)who is blessed [f]forever. Amen.
26 For this reason (M)God gave them over to (N)degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is [g]unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, (O)men with men committing [h]indecent acts and receiving in [i]their own persons the due penalty of their error.
28 And just as they did not see fit [j]to acknowledge God any longer, (P)God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are(Q)gossips, 30 slanderers, [k](R)haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, (S)disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, (T)unloving, unmerciful; 32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of (U)death, they not only do the same, but also (V)give hearty approval to those who practice them.
Now, all of a sudden, not only is this characteristic of our nation, but we now promote it. One of the parties, the Democratic Party, has now made Romans 1, the sins of Romans 1, their agenda. What God condemns, they affirm. What God punishes, they exalt. Shocking, really. The Democratic Party has become the anti-God party, the sin-promoting party. By the way, there are seventy-two million registered Democrats in this country who have identified themselves with that party and maybe they need to rethink that identification.
I know from last week’s message that there was some response from people who said, “Why are you getting political?”
Romans 1 is not politics. The Bible is not politics. This has nothing to do with politics. This has to do with speaking the Word of God through the culture in which we live. It has nothing to do with politics. It’s not about personalities; it’s about iniquity and judgment. And why do we say this? Because this must be recognized for what it is–sin, serious sin, damning sin, destructive sin.
WHAT HAS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY REJECTED? THE ANSWER IS THE GOD WHO HAS REVEALED HIM SELF THROUGH THE BOOK OF NATURE AND THE BOOK OF SCRIPTURE!
God Is There And He Is Not Silent
Psalm 19
Intro. 1) Francis Schaeffer lived from 1912-1984. He was one of the Christian
intellectual giants of the 20th century. He taught us that you could be a Christian and not abandon the mind. One of the books he wrote was entitled He Is There And He Is Not Silent. In that work he makes a crucial and thought provoking statement, “The infinite- personal God is there, but also he is not silent; that changes the whole world…He is there and is not a silent, nor far-off God.” (Works of F.S., Vol 1, 276).
2) God is there and He is not silent. In fact He has revealed Himself to us in 2 books: the book of nature and the book of Scripture. Francis Bacon, a 15th century scientist who is credited by many with developing the scientific method said it this way: “There are 2 books laid before us to study, to prevent us from falling into error: first the volume to the Scriptures, which reveal the will of God; then the volume of the creation, which expresses His power.”
3) Psalm 19 addresses both of God’s books, the book of nature in vs 1-6 and the book of Scripture in vs. 7-14. Described as a wisdom Psalm, its beauty, poetry and splendor led C.S. Lewis to say, “I take this to be the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world” (Reflections on the Psalms, 63).
Trans. God is there and He is not silent. How should we hear and listen to the God who talks?
I. Listen To God Speak Through Nature 19:1-6
God has revealed himself to ever rational human on the earth in two ways: 1) nature and 2) conscience. We call this natural or general revelation. In vs. 1-6 David addresses the wonder of nature and creation.
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 5 | Truth and History
First is what Romans says: Romans 1:18-32 New American Standard Bible (NASB) Unbelief and Its Consequences 18 For (A)the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who (B)suppress the truth [a]in unrighteousness, 19 because (C)that which is known about God is evident [b]within them; for God made it evident to […]
Abortion and the Campaign for Immorality (Selected Scriptures) John MacArthur Published on Sep 30, 2012 by JohnMacArthurGTY http://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/90-448 What a privilege and joy it is to worship the Lord here at Grace Church. Patricia and I miss it when we’re not here. There’s no place like this. Our hearts are full to overflowing to be […]
Prophecy–The Biblical Prophesy About Tyre.mp4 Uploaded by TruthIsLife7 on Dec 5, 2010 A short summary of the prophecy about Tyre and it’s precise fulfillment. Go to this link and watch the whole series for the amazing fulfillment from secular sources. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvt4mDZUefo ________________ John MacArthur on the amazing fulfilled prophecy on Tyre and how it was fulfilled […]
1 John 5:14-17 New American Standard Bible (NASB) 14 This is (A)the confidence which we have [a]before Him, that, (B)if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, (C)we know that we have the requests which we have asked from […]
CNN)Mikhail Gorbachev — the last leader of the former Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 — has died at the age of 91.
Gorbachev died after a long illness, Russian state news agencies reported.
“Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev died this evening after a severe and prolonged illness,” the Central Clinical Hospital said, according to RIA Novosti Tuesday.
Cold War had been in failing health for some time.
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told RIA Novosti.
Putin will send a message on Wednesday to
With his outgoing, charismatic nature, Gorbachev broke the mold for Soviet leaders who until then had mostly been remote, icy figures. Almost from the start of his leadership, he strove for significant reforms, so the system would work more efficiently and more democratically. Hence the two key phrases of the Gorbachev era: “glasnost” (openness) and “perestroika” (restructuring).
“I began these reforms and my guiding stars were freedom and democracy, without bloodshed. So the people would cease to be a herd led by a shepherd. They would become citizens,” he later said.
He will be buried next to his wife at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, RIA Novosti reported citing the Gorbachev Foundation.
From farm labor to party’s rising star
Gorbachev had humble beginnings: He was born into a peasant family on March 2, 1931 near Stavropol, and as a boy, he did farm labor along with his studies, working with his father who was a combine harvester operator. In later life, Gorbachev said he was “particularly proud of my ability to detect a fault in the combine instantly, just by the sound of it.”
He became a member of the Communist Party in 1952 and completed a law degree at Moscow University in 1955. It was here that he met — and married — fellow student Raisa Titarenko.
During the early 1960s, Gorbachev became head of the agriculture department for the Stavropol region. By the end of the decade he had risen to the top of the party hierarchy in the region. He came to the attention of Mikhail Suslov and Yuri Andropov, members of the Politburo, the principal policy-setting body of the Communist Part of the Soviet Union, who got him elected to the Central Committee in 1971 and arranged foreign trips for their rising star.
In 1978, Gorbachev was back in Moscow, and the next year he was chosen as a candidate member of the Politburo. His stewardship of Soviet agriculture was not a success. As he came to realize, the collective system was fundamentally flawed in more than one way.
A full Politburo member since 1980, Gorbachev became more influential in 1982 when his mentor, Andropov, succeeded Leonid Brezhnev as general secretary of the party. He built a reputation as an enemy of corruption and inefficiency, finally rising to the top party spot in March 1985.
Mikhail Gorbachev, seen in 1984, when he was a Russian Politburo member and second in line at the Kremlin.
‘A man one can do business with’
Hoping to shift resources to the civilian sector of the Soviet economy, Gorbachev began to argue in favor of an end to the arms race with the West.
However, throughout his six years in office, Gorbachev always seemed to be moving too fast for the party establishment — which saw its privileges threatened — and too slow for more radical reformers, who hoped to do away with the one-party state and the command economy.
Desperately trying to stay in control of the reform process, he seemed to have underestimated the depth of the economic crisis. He also seemed to have had a blind spot for the power of the nationality issue: Glasnost created ever-louder calls for independence from the Baltics and other Soviet republics in the late 1980s.
He was successful in foreign policy, but primarily from an international perspective, with other world leaders taking note. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called him “a man one can do business with.”
In 1986, face to face with American President Ronald Reagan at a summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, Gorbachev made a stunning proposal: eliminate all long-range missiles held by the United States and the Soviet Union. It was the beginning of the end of the Cold War.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 “for his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community.”
The pact that resulted, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, endured as a pillar of arms control for three decades until, in 2019, the United States formally withdrew and the Russian government said it had been consigned to the trash can.
Gorbachev speaks during a visit to Ottawa, Canada in 1990.
Hard-liners revolt
While Gorbachev’s arms control agreements with the US could be seen as also being in the Soviet interest, the breakaway of some of the countries of Eastern Europe, followed by German unification and NATO membership for the new unified Germany (West Germany had previously been in NATO), angered old-school Communists.
In August 1991, hard-liners had had enough. With Gorbachev on vacation in the Crimea, they staged a revolt. Boris Yeltsin, the president of the biggest Soviet republic — Russia — and a fierce critic of what he considered Gorbachev’s halfway reforms, nevertheless came to his rescue, facing down and defeating the coup plotters.
But across the Soviet Union, republics — one after another — were declaring independence and on December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned as Soviet president. As he read his resignation speech, Gorbachev defined what likely will be his legacy: “The country received freedom, was liberated politically and spiritually, and that was the most important achievement.”
The red flag that flew over the Kremlin, symbol of the USSR, was lowered. The Soviet Union — was over and Yeltsin was in control. “We are living in a new world,” Gorbachev said.
In April 2012, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour askedGorbachev whether he had engineered the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev said there had been nothing in his speeches “until the very end” that had supported its disintegration: “The breakup of the union was the result of betrayal by the Soviet nomenklatura, by the bureaucracy, and also Yeltsin’s betrayal. He spoke about cooperating with me, working with me on a new union treaty, he signed the draft union treaty, initialed that treaty. But at the same time, he was working behind my back.”
In 1996 Gorbachev ran against Yeltsin for the Russian presidency but got less than 1% of the vote.
Speaking out post-presidency
Three years later, Gorbachev lost the love of his life — his wife of 46 years, Raisa — to cancer. The couple had one daughter, Irina. “In the worst moments I was always very calm and balanced. But now that she’s gone — I don’t want to live. The central point in our lives is gone,” he said.
But Gorbachev did go on, speaking out on nuclear disarmament, the environment, poverty — and in his wife’s memory, set up with the family the Raisa Gorbachev Foundation to fight children’s cancer.
Previously, he had established the Green Cross – to deal with ecological issues — and the International Foundation for Socio-Economic and Political Studies, or Gorbachev Foundation. In 2011, Gorbachev also launched the annual “Gorbachev Awards” to celebrate “those who have changed the world for the better.”
Gorbachev’s involvement in Russian politics continued as well. He was head of the Social Democratic Party of Russia from 2001 until his resignation in 2004 over conflicts with party direction and leadership.
In 2007, he became head of a new Russian political movement — the Union of Social Democrats, which in turn set up the opposition Independent Democratic Party of Russia.
He told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in 2012 that he agreed Russian democracy was “alive” but added: “That it is ‘well’… not so. I am alive, but I can’t say that I’m fine.” He explained that the “institutions of democracy are not working efficiently in Russia, because ultimately they are not free.”
Mixed legacy
In an interview with CNN in 2019, Gorbachev said the US and Russia must strive to avoid a “New Cold War” developing despite worsening tensions. “This might turn out to be a hot war that could mean the destruction of our entire civilization. This must not be allowed,” he said.
And asked about the demise of the 1987 treaty he signed with Reagan, Gorbachev expressed a hope that such arms control agreements could be revived.
“All the agreements that are there are preserved and not destroyed,” he said. “But these are the first steps towards destruction of [that which] must not be destroyed in any case.” The ultimate goal of arms control, he added, must be to get rid of nuclear weapons completely.
Gorbachev’s post-USSR life also included some surprises as he worked to raise money for his causes with appearances in advertisements for Pizza Hut and Louis Vuitton. In 2004 Gorbachev won a Grammy Award for best spoken word album for children for “Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf / Beintus: Wolf Tracks,” which he recorded with former US President Bill Clinton and actress Sophia Loren.
Other awards included the 2008 Liberty Medal from the US National Constitution Center and Russia’s highest honor, the Order of St. Andrew, which was given to him on his 80th birthday in 2011 by then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
But to the end, Gorbachev was a leader more respected in other countries than at home. In Russia, he was reviled by some for destroying the Soviet empire and by others for moving too slowly in freeing his nation from the grip of communism. In the West, however, he remains the Nobel Peace Prize winner who helped end the Cold War.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Gorbachev died at 91.
Moral Support: “One Dimensional Man” author Herbert Marcuse accompanies Bettina Aptheker, center, and Angela Davis’ mother, Sallye Davis, to Angela Davis’ 1972 trial in San Jose. Associated Press
J.I.PACKER WROTE OF SCHAEFFER, “His communicative style was not that of acautious academic who labors for exhaustive coverage and dispassionate objectivity. It was rather that of an impassioned thinker who paints his vision of eternal truth in bold strokes and stark contrasts.Yet it is a fact that MANY YOUNG THINKERS AND ARTISTS…HAVE FOUND SCHAEFFER’S ANALYSES A LIFELINE TO SANITY WITHOUT WHICH THEY COULD NOT HAVE GONE ON LIVING.”
Francis Schaeffer in Art and the Bible noted, “Many modern artists, it seems to me, have forgotten the value that art has in itself. Much modern art is far too intellectual to be great art. Many modern artists seem not to see the distinction between man and non-man, and it is a part of the lostness of modern man that they no longer see value in the work of art as a work of art.”
Many modern artists are left in this point of desperation that Schaeffer points out and it reminds me of the despair that Solomon speaks of in Ecclesiastes. Christian scholar Ravi Zacharias has noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term ‘under the sun.’ What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system, and you are left with only this world of time plus chanceplus matter.” THIS IS EXACT POINT SCHAEFFER SAYS SECULAR ARTISTSARE PAINTING FROM TODAY BECAUSE THEY BELIEVED ARE A RESULTOF MINDLESS CHANCE.
Communism catches the attention of the young at heart but it has always brought repression wherever it is tried. “True Communism has never been tried” is something I was told just a few months ago by a well meaning young person who was impressed with the ideas of Karl Marx.I responded that there are only 5 communist countries in the world today and they lack political, economic and religious freedom.
Hope in Marxism-Leninism is a leap in the area of nonreason. From the Russian Revolution until 1959 a total of 66 million prisoners died. This was deemed acceptable to the leaders because internal security was to be gained at any cost. The ends justified the means. The materialism of Marxism gives no basis for human dignity or rights. These hold to their philosophy against all reason and close their eyes to the oppression of the system.
WHY DOES COMMUNISM FAIL?
Communism has always failed because of its materialist base. Francis Schaeffer does a great job of showing that in this clip below. Also Schaeffer shows that there were lots of similar things about the basis for both the French and Russia revolutions and he exposes the materialist and humanist basis of both revolutions.
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Bettina’s father was Herbert Aptheker (July 31, 1915 – March 17, 2003) was an American Marxist historian and political activist. From the 1940s, Aptheker was a prominent figure in U.S. scholarly discourse. David Horowitz described Aptheker as “the Communist Party’s most prominent Cold War intellectual”.[1]
Schaeffer compares communism with French Revolution and Napoleon.
1. Lenin took charge in Russia much as Napoleon took charge in France – when people get desperate enough, they’ll take a dictator.
Other examples: Hitler, Julius Caesar. It could happen again.
2. Communism is very repressive, stifling political and artistic freedom. Even allies have to be coerced. (Poland).
Communists say repression is temporary until utopia can be reached – yet there is no evidence of progress in that direction. Dictatorship appears to be permanent.
3. No ultimate basis for morality (right and wrong) – materialist base of communism is just as humanistic as French. Only have “arbitrary absolutes” no final basis for right and wrong.
How is Christianity different from both French Revolution and Communism?
Contrast N.T. Christianity – very positive government reform and great strides against injustice. (especially under Wesleyan revival).
Bible gives absolutes – standards of right and wrong. It shows the problems and why they exist (man’s fall and rebellion against God).
WHY DOES THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM CATCH THE ATTENTION OF SO MANY IDEALISTIC YOUNG PEOPLE? The reason is very simple.
In HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, the late Francis A. Schaeffer wrote:
Materialism, the philosophic base for Marxist-Leninism, gives no basis for the dignity or rights of man. Where Marxist-Leninism is not in power it attracts and converts by talking much of dignity and rights, but its materialistic base gives no basis for the dignity or rights of man. Yet is attracts by its constant talk of idealism.
To understand this phenomenon we must understand that Marx reached over to that for which Christianity does give a base–the dignity of man–and took the words as words of his own. The only understanding of idealistic sounding Marxist-Leninism is that it is (in this sense) a Christian heresy. Not having the Christian base, until it comes to power it uses the words for which Christianity does give a base. But wherever Marxist-Leninism has had power, it has at no place in history shown where it has not brought forth oppression. As soon as they have had the power, the desire of the majority has become a concept without meaning.
Is Christianity at all like Communism?
Sometimes Communism sounds very “Christian” – desirable goals of equality, justice, etc but these terms are just borrowed from the New Testament. Schaeffer elsewhere explains by saying Marxism is a Christian heresy.
Below is a great article. Free-lance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.
This article was published January 30, 2011 at 2:28 a.m. Here is a portion of that article below:
A final advantage is the mutation of socialism into so many variants over the past century or so. Precisely because Karl Marx was unclear as to how it would work in practice, socialism has always been something of an empty vessel into which would be revolutionaries seeking personal meaning and utopian causes to support can pour pretty much anything.
A desire to increase state power, soak the rich and expand the welfare state is about all that is left of the original vision. Socialism for young lefties these days means “social justice” and compassion for the poor, not the gulag and the NKVD.
In the end, the one argument that will never wash is that communismcan’t be said to have failed because it was never actually tried. This is a transparent intellectual dodge that ignores the fact that “people’s democracies” were established all over the place in the first three decades after World War II.
Such sophistry is resorted to only because communism in all of those places produced hell on earth rather than heaven.
That the attempts to build communism in a remarkable variety of different geographical regions led to only tyranny and mass bloodshed tells us only that it was never feasible in the first place, and that societies built on the socialist principle ironically suffer from the kind of “inner contradictions” that Marx mistakenly predicted would destroy capitalism.
Yes, all economies are mixed in nature, and one could plausibly argue that the socialist impulse took the rough edges off of capitalism by sponsoring the creation of welfare-state programs that command considerable public support.
But the fact remains that no society in history has been able to achieve sustained prosperity without respect for private property and market forces of supply and demand. Nations, therefore, retain their economic dynamism only to the extent that they resist the temptation to travel too far down the socialist road.
A video important to today. The man was very wise in the ways of God. And of government. Hope you enjoy a good solis teaching from the past. The truth never gets old.
The Roots of the Emergent Church by Francis Schaeffer
How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason)
#02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer
10 Worldview and Truth
Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100
Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR
Professor Bettina F. Aptheker
Published on Nov 7, 2012
Visiting Professor from University of California at Santa Cruz.
Bettina Fay Aptheker (born September 13, 1944) is an American political activist, feminist, professor and author. A former member of the Communist Party USA like her parents, she was active in civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and has worked in developing feminist studies since the late 1970s.
Aptheker was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Fay Philippa Aptheker and Herbert Aptheker, first cousins who had married in Brooklyn. Both parents were political activists; her mother, who had been married before and was 10 years older than her husband, was a union organizer. Her father was a Marxist historian whose first book about slave revolts overturned previous conceptions of enslaved African Americans. He was a major figure in changing the writing of African-American history.[1] She was raised in Brooklyn, New York, where her Jewish parents, children of immigrants, had grown up. Her first job as a teenager was in the home of W.E.B. Du Bois, who was a good friend of her father.
Ten years later, she partially retired from political activism and returned to academia for graduate work. In 1976 she completed her master’s degree in communications at San José State University, and started teaching there.
Cover of Aptheker’s May 1968 pamphlet,Columbia Inc.
Aptheker was a delegate to the June 1964 founding convention of the W.E.B. DuBois Clubs, a Communist Party-sponsored youth organization, held in San Francisco.[2]
She rose in influence to become a member of the governing National Committee of the CPUSA. She was remembered by the California party leader Dorothy Healey in her 1990 memoir as “one of the liveliest of the young people who rose to prominence in the party in the 1960s and also one of the warmest human beings I’ve ever met.”[3]
In 1968, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia divided the 120-member leadership of the CPUSA. All but three of the National Committee, headed by party leader Gus Hall, backed the intervention of Soviet tanks.[4] A meeting of the National Committee held over the Labor Day weekend backed Hall by a margin of five-to-one.[3] Bettina Aptheker denounced the invasion into Czechoslovakian internal affairs, however, and voted with the minority; she opposed her father Herbert Aptheker over this issue.[3] One of the CPUSA’s leading intellectuals, he and a majority of its leaders had defended the Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956.[4]
During the 1970s, Aptheker worked for the defense in the high-profile trial of Angela Davis, a long-time friend and fellow Communist Party member involved in George Jackson‘s attempt to escape from jail. She also wrote a book about the trial, which was published in 1974.[4]
After completing her master’s degree, Aptheker taught African-American and Women’s Studies at San José State University. In the early 1980s, she completed a doctorate in the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Since 1980, she has taught in the Feminist Studies department there.
In 1965 Aptheker married her fellow student Jack Kurzweil, who was also a Communist activist. They divorced in 1978 after having two children together.
Since October 1979, Aptheker has been with Kate Miller, her life partner. They have three children between them (each woman had children in her first marriage). Aptheker is a grandmother.
In her memoir, Intimate Politics, (2006), she wrote about growing up in a leftist household, as what was called a “Red Diaper Baby.” She was strongly influenced in her activism by that of her parents. She also commented on her father’s scholarship. In addition to his commitment to the cause of justice for African Americans, she believed her father celebrated black resistance under slavery as an attempt “to compensate for his deep shame about the way, he believed, the Jews had acted during the Holocaust.”[5]
Her memoir reported that her father had sexually molested her from when she was 3 to age 13. In an opinion column written after her book was reviewed, Aptheker said she had earlier kept silent to shield her family.[6] Memories began to arise in 1999, after her mother’s death and when she began writing the memoir. When her father asked, “Did I ever hurt you as a child?,” she responded “yes” and explained the emotional effects of his treatment. He expressed anguish and sorrow, and they eventually reconciled. With counseling, she found she had suffered dissociation when young, as at the time her family was under great stress during the McCarthy years. Bettina Aptheker stressed her compassion for her father.[6]
Her assertion generated considerable controversy in the academic community because of her father’s stature as a scholar and Communist. Numerous letters were published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, which had reviewed her book, and on the History News Network of George Mason University.[7] Some historians wondered how this news affected people’s perceptions of Herbert Aptheker’s work. Others questioned Bettina Aptheker’s credibility, classing her account in stories of “recovered memory.”[5] The historian Mark Rosenzweig wrote, “the truth about Herbert and Bettina is inaccessible to us.”[8] The historian Jesse Lemisch wrote in his second essay about the controversy, “Shhh! Don’t Talk about Herbert Aptheker”:
“…a general public silence by Old Leftists in response to the report of Herbert Aptheker’s sexual molestation of his daughter Bettina may be writing another chapter in the strange history of American Communism. Fellow Red Diaper Babies and many former Communists seem to want to sweep this under the rug – or, may I say, airbrush it – as if there had never been a Women’s Liberation Movement, and it had never occurred to anybody that there might be a connection between the personal and the political…”[9]
The controversy continued for months. In November 2007, the historian Christopher Phelps published an overview. He included the results of an interview with Kate Miller, who had been present during Aptheker’s 1999 conversation with her father about the abuse, and confirmed her account.[10]
Jump up^Francis X. Gannon, Biographical Dictionary of the Left: Volume II. Boston: Western Islands, 1971; pp. 182-183.
^ Jump up to:abcDorothy Healey and Maurice Isserman, Dorothy Healey Remembers: A Life in the American Communist Party. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990; p. 233.
Episode #121: “You cannot work towards peace being peaceful” says artist Krzystof Wodiczko, who explains this paradoxical position in terms of his personal experiences growing up in Poland under communist rule. Filmed at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Wodiczko’s interview is punctuated by the sound of sirens from outside, the city in a state of “full alert.”
By appropriating public buildings and monuments as backdrops for projections, Krzysztof Wodiczko focuses attention on ways in which architecture and monuments reflect collective memory and history. Projecting images of community members’ hands, faces, or entire bodies onto architectural façades, and combining those images with voiced testimonies, Wodiczko disrupts our traditional understanding of the functions of public space and architecture. He challenges the silent, stark monumentality of buildings, activating them in an examination of notions of human rights, democracy, and truths about the violence, alienation, and inhumanity that underlie countless aspects of social interaction in present-day society.
VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Gary Henoch. Sound: Steve Bores. Editor: Joaquin Perez . Special Thanks : Catherine Tatge, the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
_____________________________
Krzysztof Wodiczko | Art21 | Preview from Season 3 of “Art in the Twenty-First Century” (2005)
Uploaded on Apr 8, 2008
Krzysztof Wodiczko creates large-scale slide and video projections of politically-charged images on architectural façades and monuments worldwide. By appropriating public buildings and monuments as backdrops for projections, Wodiczko focuses attention on ways in which architecture and monuments reflect collective memory and history.
Krzysztof Wodiczko is featured in the Season 3 episode “Power” of the Art21 series “Art in the Twenty-First Century”.
Krzysztof Wodiczko: Designer Adam Whiton | Art21 “Exclusive”
Uploaded on Jan 7, 2011
Episode #133: Filmed at the Interrogative Design Group offices at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, designer Adam Whiton discusses his work with artist Krzysztof Wodiczko. By developing innovative technology for projects such as “The Tijuana Projection” (2001), “Dis-Armor” (1999-2000), and “AEgis” (2000), Wodiczko and Whiton explore the potential for design to be used in a way that will “get people to think more…trigger questions and make people uncomfortable.”
By appropriating public buildings and monuments as backdrops for projections, Krzysztof Wodiczko focuses attention on ways in which architecture and monuments reflect collective memory and history. Projecting images of community members’ hands, faces, or entire bodies onto architectural façades, and combining those images with voiced testimonies, Wodiczko disrupts our traditional understanding of the functions of public space and architecture. He challenges the silent, stark monumentality of buildings, activating them in an examination of notions of human rights, democracy, and truths about the violence, alienation, and inhumanity that underlie countless aspects of social interaction in present-day society.
VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Gary Henoch. Sound: Steve Bores. Editor: Joaquin Perez??. Artwork Courtesy: Interrogative Design Group & Krzysztof Wodiczko. Special Thanks?: Catherine Tatge, the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). @ 2011, Art21, Inc.
Krzysztof Wodiczko was born in 1943 in Warsaw, Poland, and lives and works in New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1980, he has created more than seventy large-scale slide and video projections of politically charged images on architectural façades and monuments worldwide. By appropriating public buildings and monuments as backdrops for projections, Wodiczko focuses attention on ways in which architecture and monuments reflect collective memory and history. In 1996, he added sound and motion to the projections, and began to collaborate with communities around chosen projection sites—giving voice to the concerns of heretofore marginalized and silent citizens who live in the monuments’ shadows. Projecting images of community members’ hands, faces, or entire bodies onto architectural façades, and combining those images with voiced testimonies, Wodiczko disrupts our traditional understanding of the functions of public space and architecture. He challenges the silent, stark monumentality of buildings, activating them in an examination of notions of human rights, democracy, and truths about the violence, alienation, and inhumanity that underlie countless aspects of social interaction in present-day society. Wodiczko has also developed “instruments” to facilitate survival, communication, and healing for homeless people and immigrants; these therapeutic devices—which Wodiczko envisions as technological prosthetics or tools for empowering and extending human abilities—address physical disability as well as economic hardship, emotional trauma, and psychological distress. Wodiczko heads the Interrogative Design Group, and is Director of the Center for Art, Culture, and Technology, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work has appeared in many international exhibitions, including the Bienal de São Paulo (1965, 1967, 1985); Documenta (1977, 1987); the Venice Biennale (1986, 2000); and the Whitney Biennial (2000). Wodiczko received the 1999 Hiroshima Art Prize for his contribution as an artist to world peace, and the 2004 College Art Association Award for Distinguished Body of Work.
Krzysztof Wodiczko, born April 16, 1943, is an artist renowned for his large-scale slide and video projections on architectural facades and monuments. He has realized more than 80 such public projections in Australia, Austria, Canada, England, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States.
War, conflict, trauma, memory, and communication in the public sphere are some of the major themes of an oeuvre that spans four decades. His practice, known as Interrogative Design, combines art and technology as a critical design practice in order to highlight marginal social communities and add legitimacy to cultural issues that are often given little design attention.[1]
He lives and works in New York City and teaches in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he is currently professor in residence of art and the public Domain for the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). Wodiczko was formerly director of the Interrogative Design Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he was a professor in the Visual Arts Program since 1991. He also teaches as Visiting Professor in the Psychology Department at the Warsaw School of Social Psychology.
Krzysztof Wodiczko, son of Polish orchestra conductor Bohdan Wodiczko,[2] was born in 1943 during the Warsaw ghetto uprising and grew up in post-war, Soviet-occupied, Poland. In 1967 while still a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, he began collaborating with director Jozef Patkowski and the Experimental Studio on sound performances. He graduated in 1968 with an M.F.A. degree in industrial design and worked for the next two years at UNITRA, Warsaw, designing popular electronic products. From 1970 until his emigration to Canada in 1977, he designed professional optical, mechanical, and electronic instruments at the Polish Optical Works.[3]
In 1969, Wodiczko collaborated with Andrzej Dluzniewski and Wojchiech Wybieralski on a design proposal for a memorial to victims of Majdanek concentration camp in Poland. He also performed with Personal Instrument in the streets of Warsaw and participated in the Biennale de Paris as a leader of a group architectural project. He was a teaching assistant for two years, 1969–70, in the Basic Design Program at the Academy of Fine Arts before moving to the Warsaw Polytechnic Institute where he taught until 1976. Throughout the 1970s he continued his collaborations on sound and music performances with various musicians and artists.
In 1971, Wodiczko began work on Vehicle, which he tested the following year on the streets of Warsaw. In 1972 he created his first solo installation: Corridor at Galeria Wspolczesna, Warsaw. The following year he began exhibiting with Galeria Foksal, Warsaw. In 1975, Wodiczko traveled for the first time to the United States where he was artist-in-residence at the University of Illinois, Urbana and exhibited at N.A.M.E. Gallery, Chicago. He participated again in the Biennale de Paris, this time as a solo artist.
In 1976, Wodiczko began a two-year artist-in-residence program at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Canada. He emigrated from Poland in 1977, establishing residency in Canada teaching at the University of Guelph in Ontario, and began working with New York art dealer Hal Bromm. In 1979 he taught at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and continued teaching at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design until 1981. From 1981-1982 he was artist in residence at the South Australian School of Art (currently part of the University of South Australia inAdelaide). In 1983, Wodiczko established residency in New York City teaching at the New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury. The following year, he received Canadian citizenship and in 1986 resident-alien status in the United States. He began teaching at MIT in 1991, maintaining his residence in New York City while working in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Krzysztof Wodiczko began developing his public projections in 1980 interfacing the facades of urban architecture – whether public monuments, public buildings, or corporate architecture – with images of the body to juxtapose the physical space of architecture with the psycho-social space of the public realm. “In the process of our socialization,” the artist writes, “the very first contact with a public building is no less important than the moment of social confrontation with the father, through which our sexual role and place in society [are] constructed. Early socialization through patriarchal sexual discipline is extended by the later socialization through the institutional architecturalization of our bodies. Thus the spirit of the father never dies, continuously living as it does in the building which was, is, and will be embodying, structuring, mastering, representing, and reproducing his ‘eternal’ and ‘universal’ presence as a patriarchal wisdom-body of power.”[4]
In an often cited example, Wodiczko projected an image of the hand of Ronald Reagan, in formal dress shirt with cufflinks, posed in the pledge of allegiance, onto the north face of the AT&T Long Lines Building in the financial district of New York City four days before the presidential election of 1984. “By creating a spectacle in which a fragment of the governing body, the presidential hand, was asked to stand for corporate business,” writes Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, “Wodiczko offered a suggestion about the class identity of those forces that – hidden under the guise of God, State, and Nation – are the actual receivers of the pledge of allegiance.”[5] In subsequent projections, the artist layered iconic representations of global capitalism, militarism, and consumerism with images of fragments of the body to suggest a consideration of our relation to public space that is contingent both to history and social and political ideologies of the present.
Art historian Patricia C. Phillips writes of the artist’s work: “In his public projects of the past decade, Krzysztof Wodiczko has conducted a series of active mediations that combine significant public sites, tough subjects, and aggressive statements that are only possible because of their temporality. He applies the immediate force of performance to social and political problems. The rhythms of extenuating events and the brevity of each installation give his projected episodes the intensity of public, political demonstrations. His thoroughly staged, illuminated images often require months of preparation, yet they seem like surprise attacks – fiercely focused parasitic invasions of renowned institutional hosts.”[6]
Perhaps the best-known and most popular intervention of this nature was performed when the artist created a projection for Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square, London in 1985. The South African government was at that time petitioning the British government for financial support. Wodiczko turned one of his projectors away from Nelson’s column projecting a swastika onto the tympanum of the temple-like façade of South Africa House, the South African diplomatic mission to the United Kingdom. Though the image remained only two hours before the police suspended the intervention as a “public nuisance” it lingered in public awareness much longer.[7] It is frequently cited at conferences, in classroom discussions, and other forum as an example of successful urban guerrilla cultural tactics – that is, art and/or performance that is waged by unexpected means for the purpose of engaging an active response.
Tijuana Projection, 2001. Public video projection at the Centro Cultural Tijuana, Mexico. Organized as part of the event InSite 2000.
In explaining the potential of cultural projects in the public sphere, the artist writes: “I try to understand what is happening in the city, how the city can operate as a communicative environment… It is important to understand the circumstances under which communication is reduced or destroyed, and under what possible new conditions it can be provoked to reappear. How can aesthetic practice in the built environment contribute to critical discourse between the inhabitants themselves and the environment? How can aesthetic practice make existing symbolic structures respond to contemporary events?”[8] For Wodiczko, disrupting the complacency of perception is imperative for passersby to stop, reflect, and perhaps even change their thinking; so he built his visual repertoire to evoke both the historical past and the political present.
In this way, Wodiczko’s visual repertoire for his projections expanded beyond the body (ears, eyes, and hands as indicators of human sensibility) to include chains, missiles, tanks, coins, cameras, boots, swastikas, guns, candles, food baskets, and corporate logos. “In these projections,” writes Kathleen MacQueen, “the artist alternates between symbolic, iconic, and indexical images – the principal relations an image can have to its subject, according to the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce – that is, predicated on a cultural reference, a physical resemblance, or a physical relation respectively. In many instances they scramble all relations: the hand, an index of the body – someone’s body – is also an iconic representation of communication that might symbolically represent an open or closed ideological position.” The reductive, visual signs monumentally-sized to fit the facades on which they are projected, are not meant to read as logos for a political agenda, instead they suggest a perceptual contradiction to disrupt the kind of assumptions that beset the casual passerby.[9]
Wodiczko’s visual interventions into public space are intended to alter what Jacques Rancière would later term the realm of the sensible.[10] When the public views its urban monuments with sidelong glances out of the corners of its eyes, it accepts the monuments as natural and uncoded. By intercepting vision with projections, Wodiczko replaces an unconsidered reception with a critical one.[11] This is the lesson of the Russian Formalists, of Bertolt Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt and of Friedrich Nietzche’s understanding of Goethe’s belief that knowledge must quicken activity rather than lead to complacence.[12]
The artist began to integrate direct activism into his projects in the late 1980s with his vehicles and his instruments, articles of design that would act as band-aids – not only healing social wounds but perhaps more importantly calling attention to them.
While the artist had produced his first vehicle in Poland with additional conceptual versions designed when he lived in Canada, it was with his Homeless Vehicle Project of 1987-89, that he redirected “attention from the work of art as dissent to the work of art as social action: in this case, the discussions and design collaboration with members of the homeless community to develop both a physical object and a conceptual design that would make their participation in the urban economy visible and self-directed.”[13] The Homeless Vehicle Project was both symbolic and useful: the artist’s first work to use a collective process to legitimize the problems of a marginal community “without legitimating the crisis of homelessness.”[14] While the public was cautious, the operators of the vehicles took the project seriously. According to Wodiczko, “You see this in certain gestures, certain ways of behaving, speaking, dialoguing, of building up stories, narratives: the homeless become actors, orators, workers, all things which they usually are not. The idea is to let them speak and tell their own stories, to let them be legitimate actors on the urban stage.”[15] The attention to testimony as a transformative process while still tentative in theHomeless Vehicle Project became a significant performative process in the artist’s Instruments and eventually part of the his projections as well.[16]
Wodiczko created Poliscar in 1991 as a kind of “command center” for communication and community activism – a vehicle equipped with first-aid supplies, video and radio transmission equipment, and tools for everyday survival, it could support legal, medical, and social crisis aid, the mobile units ranging from three to ten miles from a base station. Poliscar was a technological design for the disenfranchised public of the polis or public sphere. Later Wodiczko would merge his vehicles with his projections when working with war veterans (see “Recent Work”).
Krzysztof Wodiczko created the Personal Instrument in 1969, his first conceptual design work taken into the public sphere. Though he had a degree in industrial design and created popular electronics for a Polish manufacturer, his design philosophy was influenced by Russian constructivism epitomized by the poet/artist Vladimir Mayakovsky’s statement, “the streets our brushes, the squares our palettes.” ‘‘The Personal Instrument’’ consisted of a microphone, worn on the forehead, which retrieved sound while photo-receivers in gloves isolated and filtered the sound through the movement of the hand, which was then perceived discriminately by the artist, perceptually confined by the sound-proof headphones. By emphasizing selective listening, vital (under authoritarian restrictions) to a Polish citizen’s survival, Wodiczko intimated the prevalence of censored speech, registering “dissent of a system that fostered only one-directional critical thinking – listening over speech.”[17]
After his work with the homeless community in New York City and Philadelphia, Wodiczko returned to the possibilities of smaller, personal instruments as conceptual and functional objects to offset the problems of communication for urban migrants. Initially based on the iconic staff of the wandering prophet, the Alien Staff (1992 and its variant, 1992/93) was designed to mediate conversation between aliens (the juridical term designating all immigrants whether of legal or illegal status) and the franchised population of an urban environment. The staff not only presented an object of curiosity to passersby, causing them to interrupt their pace long enough to ask questions, it also became a repository of narrative recording and objects both sacred or necessary (e.g., green cards or family mementoes) to the lives of the immigrants. Influenced by Julia Kristeva’s Strangers to Ourselves (1991), Wodiczko developed new equipment in 1993 that focused even more directly on democratic speech rights for the performative stranger. Mouthpiece (Porte-parole) was intended to act as a protective zone so that the immigrant could expand her narrative outward into a collective experience thereby pulling her out of isolation. The video technology, to be worn over the mouth, makes strange the familiar thereby creating a point of entry for passersby to enter into conversation with the immigrant. Between 1993 and 1997, thirteen culturally displaced persons used variants of the Mouthpiece in Paris, Malmö, Helsinki, Warsaw, Amsterdam, Trélazé, and Angers.
…OUT OF HERE: The Veterans Project, 2009–2011. Seven-channel color video with sound. Installation view, Galerie Lelong, New York, 2011.
While working on Porte-parole in Europe, Wodiczko received an invitation from the filmmaker Andrzej Wajda to participate in an urban festival in Krakow using for the first time powerful Barco NVvideo projectors. Working with the Women’s Center, he merged for the first time the testimonial work that had evolved from his work with instruments with the visual impact of his well-known large-scale public projections. Testimony of domestic abuse spoken from the City Hall Tower created shockwaves in an overwhelmingly Catholic culture of denial.
In this way, Wodiczko continued in his testimonial video projections to respond to the needs of urban society’s marginal citizens who frequently survive outside the usual boundaries of juridical and social resources. In 2001, he merged the means of his instruments with the purpose of the projections in his Tijuana Projection executed for InSite 2000. In this public intervention, women working in the “maquiladora” industry of Tijuana, Mexico wore media technology designed to project their faces onto El Centro Cultural as they spoke emotionally of incest, police abuse, and work place discrimination in real time. As participants, their parrhesiatic speech was courageously offered at great risk to themselves for the purpose of moral and political change. Through the video projections, Wodiczko continues to develop the potential for aesthetic practice to effect social change as part of a wider discourse on agonistic pluralism prompted by such influences as Chantal Mouffe and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
The role of art in understanding and confronting conflict becomes an increasingly significant aspect of both Wodiczko’s aesthetic and pedagogical practices. This is true in his continued work with immigrants and his recent work with war veterans in the Veteran Vehicle Project as well as his public lectures and teaching seminars worldwide including his seminar on “Trauma, Conflict, and Art” for the Warsaw School of Social Psychology. Recently, Wodiczko has also created projections for the interiors of cultural spaces as a metaphor for our psychological isolation from broader social and political experience. His 2005 exhibition at Galerie Lelong in New York City, If you see something…, his 2009 installation in the Polish Pavilion for the 53rd Venice Biennale, Guests, position the viewer in relation to the consequences of global capitalism and the conflict produced as a result of the inequitable distribution of resources and opportunities. Krzysztof Wodiczko believes in the necessity for intellectuals to participate actively in society forging, as critic Jan Avgikos points out, “a commitment to resistance and truth-telling that, while often derided as outmoded or impossible, remains a basic human impulse.”[18]
In 2009, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston exhibited …Out of Here: The Veterans Project. The multimedia installation, which ran from November 4, 2009, to March 28, 2010, filled a dark and empty museum gallery with recorded voices and explosions, along with flashes of light, simulating the experience of a mortar attack in Iraq. On three walls of the gallery, projectors cast two horizontal rows of windows, creating the illusion that viewers were inside a darkened warehouse. The eight-minute audio track started with the bustle of traffic and citizens in an Iraqi city, brought in children’s laughter, and subtly overlapped an excerpt from an Al Jazeera broadcast of President Obama speaking about the need to endure in Iraq. Listeners also noted an Islamic call to prayer, forebodingly drowned out by the approach of a helicopter. Without much warning, soldiers began yelling and shooting. When the gunfire ceased, a mother was heard wailing, and the episode ended in ominous silence (voices recorded for Out of Here belonged to a mixture of Iraqi-Americans, United States soldiers, and actors).[19]
In the process of creating Out of Here, Wodiczko opted to expand the dictionary definition of veteran. Traditionally, the term is described as “a person who has served in a military force.”[20] Wodiczko has redefined veteran to include anyone who has lived in an area where war was fought at the time they lived there, for example, residents of Iraq from 2003-2011, or residents of Germany, England, France, etc. during World War II. The Iraqi-born civilians (veterans, by the artist’s definition) who contributed to Out of Here, including the woman who lent her voice to the audio track, offered a perspective altogether different from those of the American military who had been in Iraq. This careful manipulation of the term foreshadows the artist’s choice to insert his own thoughts in Out of Here, in addition to culling the testimonies of soldiers and Iraqis. Having lived through World War II in Poland and served in the Polish military during the cold war, Wodiczko is not merely working with veterans; he is one. The artist fulfills both old and new definitions of the word veteran.
One year later, Out of Here was shown at Galerie Lelong in New York City. This second iteration contained an excerpt from a different speech by the President, and mentioned the end of the war and the gradual withdrawal of troops. Speaking on the changes, the artist commented, “It made the work more up to date…but the irony is that this project didn’t have to change much.”[21] Wodiczko cited the locations, Boston and New York, as sufficient to garner different readings of the work. “The works in Boston and New York have different publics. New York’s character and the [art] shows gave Out of Here a big international audience as opposed to the more local audience in Boston.”[22] Collectively, these narratives paint a picture of the individual veterans who told them, the larger picture of the Iraq War, and the more subtle clues to the war’s repercussions.[23]
Jump up^ Douglas Crimp, Rosalyn Deutsche, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, Krzysztof Wodiczko, “A Conversation with Krzyzstof Wodiczko” inOctober 38 (Autumn 1986): 36.
Jump up^ “Biography” in Krzysztof Wodiczko, Wodiczko (De Appel Amsterdam, 1996), 76. (Most biographical information for “Early life” comes from the biographical data in this catalog.)
Jump up^ Krzysztof Wodiczko, “Public Projections,” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 7 (Winter-Spring, 1983) quoted in Krzysztof Wodiczko, Public Address (Minneapolis: The Walker Art Center, 1992), 89.
Jump up^ Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, “Understanding Wodiczko,” Counter-Monuments: Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Public Projections(Cambridge, MA: Hayden Gallery, List Visual Arts Center, MIT, 1987).
Jump up^ Patricia C. Phillips, “Images of Repossession,” Public Address, 44.
Jump up^ Krzysztof Wodiczko, “Projections,” Perspecta 26, Theatre, Theatricality, and Architecture (1990): 273.
Jump up^ Kathleen MacQueen, Tactical Response: Art in an Age of Terror (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Publishers, 2010), 89-90.
Jump up^ Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics (2000), trans. Gabriel Rockhill (London and New York: Continuum, 2004).
Jump up^ MacQueen, Tactical Response, 91 and Krzysztof Wodiczko, “Designing for a City of Strangers” (1997) in Critical Vehicles: Writings, Projects and Interviews (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999), 4-15.
Jump up^ Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, trans. Peter Preuss (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1980).
Jump up^ Jan Avgikos, “Kryzysztof Wodiczko: Galerie Lelong.” In Artforum International (December 1, 2005), 278.
Jump up^ Blake J. Ruehrwein, “Wodiczko’s Veterans: Artist, Institution, and Audience in …Out of Here: The Veterans Project,” M.A. Thesis, City College of New York, Dec 2012.
Jump up^ The American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed., s.v. “Veteran.”
Jump up^ Krzysztof Wodiczko, interview by Blake Ruehrwein, April 29, 2011.
Jump up^ Blake J. Ruehrwein, “Wodiczko’s Veterans: Artist, Institution, and Audience in …Out of Here: The Veterans Project,” M.A. Thesis, City College of New York, Dec 2012.
Selected publications, essays, and interviews by the artist[edit]
2009, City of Refuge: A 9/11 Memorial. Edited by Mark Jarzombek and Mechtild Widrich. London: Black Dog Publishing.
2009, “Designing for a City of Strangers” in The Design Culture Reader, edited by Ben Highmore, Routledge.
2008, “Questionnaire: Krzysztof Wodiczko.” October 123, “In what ways have artists, academics, and cultural institutions responded to the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq?” (Winter 2008): 172-179.
2003, “Creating Democracy: A Dialogue with Krzysztof Wodiczko” by Patricia C. Phillips in Art Journal 64, no. 4 (Winter 2003): 33-47.
2002, “Instruments Projections Monuments” in AA Files 43: 31-41.
1999, Critical Vehicles: Writings, Projects and Interviews. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999.
1997, “Alien Staff, Krzysztof Wodiczko in Conversation with Bruce Robbins.” In Veiled Histories: The Body, Place, and Public Art. Edited by Anna Novakov. New York: San Francisco Art Institute and Critical Press, 1997.
1990, “Projections.” Perspecta 26, Theater, Theatricality, and Architecture (1990): 273-287.
1988, “Conversations about a project for a homeless vehicle.” October 47 (Winter 1988): 68-76.
1986, “Conversation with Krzysztof Wodiczko.” With Douglas Crimp, Rosalyn Deutsche and Ewa Lajer-Burcharth. October 38 (Winter 1986): 22-51.
1986, “Krzysztof Wodiczko: Public Projections.” October 38 (1986): 3-22.
2009, Guests/Goscie. With John Rajchman, Bozena Czubak, and Ewa Lajer-Burcharth. Milan and New York: Charta.
2005, Krzysztof Wodiczko: Projekcje Publiczne, Public Projections 1996-2004. With contributions by Anna Smolak, Malgorzata Gadomska, Dariusz Dolinski, et al., The Bunker Sztuki Contemporary Art Gallery, Kraków.
1998, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art, July–September.
1995, Krzysztof Wodiczko: Projects and Public Projections 1969-1995, De Appel Foundation.
1995, Sztuka Publiczna, Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw.
1994, Art public, art critique, Paris.
1992, Public Address: Krzysztof Wodiczko, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
1991, The Homeless Vehicle Project. With David Lurie, edited by Kyoichi Tsuzuki, Kyoto Shoin.
1990, Krzysztof Wodiczko: New York City Tableau, Tompkins Square, The Homeless Vehicle Project, Exit Art, New York City.
1987, Counter-Monuments: Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Public Projections with Katy Kline and Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, List Visual Arts Center.
2012, Blake J. Ruehrwein, “Wodiczko’s Veterans: Artist, Institution, and Audience in …Out of Here: The Veterans Project,” M.A. Thesis, City College of New York, Dec 2012.
2009, Eva Marxen, “Therapeutic Thinking in Contemporary Art or Psychotherapy in the Arts” in The Arts in Psychotherapy 36: 131-139.
2008-09, Ewa Lajer-Burchardt, “Interiors at Risk: Precarious Spaces in Contemporary Art” in Harvard Design Magazine 29 (Fall-Winter 2008-09)
2008, Dora Apel, “Technologies of War, Media, and Dissent in the Post 9/11 Work of Krzysztof Wodiczko” in Oxford Art Journal 31, no. 2 (June 2008): 261-280.
2008, Rosalyn Deutsche, “The Art of Witness in the Wartime Public Sphere” in Forum Permanente, transcript of the Tate Modern lecture, March 4, 2005.
2007, Tom Williams, “Architecture and Artifice in the Recent Work of Krzysztof Wodiczko” in Shifting Borders, edited by Reid W.F. Cooper, Luke Nicholson, and Jean-François Bélisle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
2006-7, Lisa Saltzman, “When Memory Speaks: A Monument Bears Witness” in Trauma and Visuality in Modernity, edited by Lisa Saltzman and Eric Rosenberg, University Press of New England and in Making Memory Matter: Strategies of Remembrance in Contemporary Art, The University of Chicago Press.
2006, Mark Jarzombek, “The Post-traumatic Turn and the Art of Walid Ra’ad and Krzystof Wodiczko: from Theory to Trope and Beyond” in Trauma and Visuality in Modernity, ed. Saltzman and Rosenberg.
2005, James Leger, “Xenology and identity in critical public art: Krzysztof Wodiczko’s immigrant instruments.” Parachute, July 28, 2005.
2002, Andrzej Turowski, “Krzysztof Wodiczko and Polish Art of the 1970s” in Primary Documents: A Sourcebook for Eastern and Central European Art Since the 1950s, The Museum of Modern Art.
2002, Rosalyn Deutsche, “Sharing Strangeness: Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Aegis and the Question of Hospitality” in Grey Room 6 (Winter 2002): 26-43.
1998, Rosalyn Deutsche, Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics, The MIT Press.
1993, Denis Hollier. “While the City Sleeps: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin’” in October 64 (Spring 1993).
1989, Patricia C. Philips, “Temporality and Public Art.” Art Journal 48, no. 4 (Winter 1989): 331-335.
1987, Ewa Lajer-Burchardt, “Urban Disturbances.” Art in America (November 1987): 146-153, 197.
1986, Rosalyn Deutsche, “Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Homeless Projection and the Site of ‘Urban Revitalization.” October 38 (Fall 1986): 63-99.
BUniverse – “Art, Trauma, and Democracy: Immigrants and Veterans” – Krzysztof Wodickzo shares several short videos depicting immigrants and their feelings about living in a land that is not their own, Institute for Human Sciences, Boston University, December 3, 2009,http://www.bu.edu/buniverse/view/?v=1lV8st9M.
30 The sayings of Agur son of Jakeh contain this message.[a]
I am weary, O God; I am weary and worn out, O God.[b] 2 I am too stupid to be human, and I lack common sense. 3 I have not mastered human wisdom, nor do I know the Holy One.
4 Who but God goes up to heaven and comes back down? Who holds the wind in his fists? Who wraps up the oceans in his cloak? Who has created the whole wide world? What is his name—and his son’s name? Tell me if you know!
5 Every word of God proves true. He is a shield to all who come to him for protection. 6 Do not add to his words, or he may rebuke you and expose you as a liar.
7 O God, I beg two favors from you; let me have them before I die. 8 First, help me never to tell a lie. Second, give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs. 9 For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name.
10 Never slander a worker to the employer, or the person will curse you, and you will pay for it.
11 Some people curse their father and do not thank their mother. 12 They are pure in their own eyes, but they are filthy and unwashed. 13 They look proudly around, casting disdainful glances. 14 They have teeth like swords and fangs like knives. They devour the poor from the earth and the needy from among humanity.
15 The leech has two suckers that cry out, “More, more!”[c]
There are three things that are never satisfied— no, four that never say, “Enough!”: 16 the grave,[d] the barren womb, the thirsty desert, the blazing fire.
17 The eye that mocks a father and despises a mother’s instructions will be plucked out by ravens of the valley and eaten by vultures.
18 There are three things that amaze me— no, four things that I don’t understand: 19 how an eagle glides through the sky, how a snake slithers on a rock, how a ship navigates the ocean, how a man loves a woman.
20 An adulterous woman consumes a man, then wipes her mouth and says, “What’s wrong with that?”
21 There are three things that make the earth tremble— no, four it cannot endure: 22 a slave who becomes a king, an overbearing fool who prospers, 23 a bitter woman who finally gets a husband, a servant girl who supplants her mistress.
24 There are four things on earth that are small but unusually wise: 25 Ants—they aren’t strong, but they store up food all summer. 26 Hyraxes[e]—they aren’t powerful, but they make their homes among the rocks. 27 Locusts—they have no king, but they march in formation. 28 Lizards—they are easy to catch, but they are found even in kings’ palaces.
29 There are three things that walk with stately stride— no, four that strut about: 30 the lion, king of animals, who won’t turn aside for anything, 31 the strutting rooster, the male goat, a king as he leads his army.
32 If you have been a fool by being proud or plotting evil, cover your mouth in shame.
33 As the beating of cream yields butter and striking the nose causes bleeding, so stirring up anger causes quarrels.
Intimacy with the Lord and His Word is the key to understanding everything. Through the Lord’s instruction and by His grace, we grow to understand Him, understand ourselves and the “”thoughts and intents of our heart”” (Hebrews 4:10). But there is more.
The Bible describes for us all types of people and how we should understand and relate to them. Proverbs is particularly helpful in this regard. Here’s one of the most tragic kinds of men, described in Proverbs.
11 There is a kind of man who curses his father and does not bless his mother. (BITTER) 12 There is a kind who is pure in his own eyes, yet is not washed from his filthiness. (HYPOCRITICAL) 13 There is a kind—oh how lofty are his eyes! And his eyelids are raised in arrogance. (PROUD) 14 There is a kind of man whose teeth are like swords and his jaw teeth like knives, to devour the afflicted from the earth and the needy from among men. (ANGRY, VIOLENT, REACTIVE). (Proverbs 30:11-14, emphasized words are mine)
This passage describes a particularly calloused, rebellious, bitter kind of man. I have met a few men like this in my life. Hardened by many past hurts, they carry an unusual, deep-seated bitterness. And bitterness always springs up, causes trouble and defiles many (Hebrews 12:15).
If you don’t understand them at the core, you are completely baffled by their behavior. There reactions are so different from yours that you are stunned. You will react in certain ways until you realize, “”Oh, I see, this is the kind of man described in Proverbs 30 … the bitter, hypocritical, proud, violent man,”” and deal with them accordingly.
If you see this man properly, you can evaluate him as God does and respond to Him with the truth, yet grace with which God always responds. You will realize it is not against you that he rails, and your heart will have pity on Him and seek to share the gospel with Him, knowing that it is the only thing that can help him.
Forgiveness for such a man, even if his attacks are directly against you, will come easier. You will have no need to take revenge when he lashes out at you for you realize it is coming from a deep root in his soul. This understanding (and your response) does not excuse his behavior, but helps you understand it and respond spiritually, not humanistically.
I have been thinking this week about a man that is exactly like this that I know. Until I understood him at the core, I was frustrated and angry. Now, for the last many years I have prayed for him. I had a dream one night that he had been saved and was eating at my table.
He comes often to my mind for some reason, and I am praying for him when I think of him. By God’s grace, I will continue to pray for this picture to be realized in this man’s heart and life.
I am not holding myself up as above him. I’m just illustrating that the Word of God has helped me understand him, and this adjustment, thankfully, changed my attitude and then behavior towards him. Before this adjustment, I was falling into anger and bitterness towards him myself!
Now I understand that, but by the grace of God, I could become just like Him.
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Tagged Gene Bartow, John Wooden | Edit | Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
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. It is tough to guard your […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
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. What does it mean to fear […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Uncategorized | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 6-8 | Solomon Turns Over a New Leaf Published on Oct 2, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 30, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 1 Published on Sep 4, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 1 Published on Sep 4, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 6-8 | Solomon Turns Over a New Leaf Published on Oct 2, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 30, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 4-6 | Solomon’s Dissatisfaction Published on Sep 24, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 23, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider ___________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Tom Brady “More than this…” Uploaded by EdenWorshipCenter on Jan 22, 2008 EWC sermon illustration showing a clip from the 2005 Tom Brady 60 minutes interview. _______________________ Tom Brady ESPN Interview Tom Brady has famous wife earned over 76 million dollars last year. However, has Brady found lasting satifaction in his life? It does not […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Adrian Rogers: How to Be a Child of a Happy Mother Published on Nov 13, 2012 Series: Fortifying Your Family (To read along turn on the annotations.) Adrian Rogers looks at the 5th commandment and the relationship of motherhood in the commandment to honor your father and mother, because the faith that doesn’t begin at home, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Ecclesiastes 1 Published on Sep 4, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular humanist man […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Adrian Rogers – How to Cultivate a Marriage Another great article from Adrian Rogers. Are fathers necessary? “Artificial insemination is the ideal method of producing a pregnancy, and a lesbian partner should have the same parenting rights accorded historically to biological fathers.” Quoted from the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, summer of 1995. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Tom Brady “More than this…” Uploaded by EdenWorshipCenter on Jan 22, 2008 EWC sermon illustration showing a clip from the 2005 Tom Brady 60 minutes interview. To Download this video copy the URL to http://www.vixy.net ________________ Obviously from the video clip above, Tom Brady has realized that even though he has won many Super Bowls […]
It has incompetent employees.
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Ricky Gervais and Penelope Wilton in ‘After Life’ (CREDIT: Netflix)
The Daily Hatch 
