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April 21, 2008 8:45AM

The Truth about Milton Friedman 

By David Boaz

Peter Goodman writes in the New York Timesthat we live in a laissez-faire world created by Milton Friedman and that that wild, unfettered market has led to our current economic problems.  David Henderson, the first editor of Cato Policy Report, begs to differ. David R. Henderson is a research fellow with the Hoover Institution, an economics professor in the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School, and the editor of The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (Liberty Fund, 2008). Here’s his critique of the Times article:

In the April 13 New York Times, economics reporter Peter S. Goodman takes “A Fresh Look at the Apostle of Free Markets,” the late Milton Friedman.  Goodman’s goal seems to be to persuade the reader that we’re emerging from an era of laissez-faire that Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman implemented together, that laissez-faire didn’t work, and that now we need to reregulate.  No, really.  I’m not kidding.  That seems to be what he’s saying.

Now, Peter is a nice guy.  He’s interviewed me a few times and we had a nice hour-long talk at the Hoover Institution earlier this year.  But his article is full of confusions and misstatements and is crying out for an answer.  Here’s mine.  The quotes from Peter’s article are indented and my answers follow.

Joblessness is growing. Millions of homes are sliding into foreclosure. The financial system continues to choke on the toxic leftovers of the mortgage crisis. The downward spiral of the economy is challenging a notion that has underpinned American economic policy for a quarter-century — the idea that prosperity springs from markets left free of government interference. 

The first two sentences are probably correct.  The third might be correct.  The fourth, the most important in the paragraph, is badly wrong.  Markets haven’t been seriously free of regulation since before the Great Depression.  There were some major deregulatory victories—in airlines, railroads, and trucking—but interestingly, these victories preceded the last quarter century—they happened in the late 1970s and 1980, under President Jimmy Carter.  And they led to good results—cheaper air travel and shipping and more accountability for truckers and railroads, to name two.  It’s true that people give lip service to economic freedom.  But the current president nationalized prescription drugs for the elderly, nationalized airport security except in five cities, and dramatically expanded federal intervention in education.  The previous Congress banned Internet gambling and the current Congress has banned certain kinds of light bulbs.  The government is now pushing people into more-expensive sources of energy.  State and local governments have passed laws that prevent owners of bars and restaurants from allowing smoking.  Congress in the 1990s started to dictate that insurance policies cover certain medical procedures. And notably, federal regulations from mortgage subsidies to the Community Reinvestment Act encouraged ill-advised investments. Those are some of the increases in government regulation.  There have been few decreases. 

The modern-day godfather of that credo was Milton Friedman, who attributed the worst economic unraveling in American history to regulators, declaring in a 1976 essay that “the Great Depression was produced by government mismanagement.” 

True.  And, by the way, Friedman got this one right as even that superregulator, Ben Bernanke admitted.  At Friedman’s 90^thbirthday party, Bernanke said, “I would like to say to Milton and Anna [Schwartz]: Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.” 

Five years later, Ronald Reagan entered the White House, elevating Mr. Friedman’s laissez-faire ideals into a veritable set of commandments. 

Oh, really?  Within a few months, Reagan had persuaded the Japanese government to forcibly limit the number of cars the Japanese auto companies could sell to the United States. And Reagan left almost all federal regulations in place. 

Taxes were cut, regulations slashed and public industries sold into private hands, all in the name of clearing government from the path to riches. 

Reagan did cut taxes in 1981–and then raised them in 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, and 1987. 

As the economy expanded and inflation abated, Mr. Friedman played the role of chief evangelist in the mission to let loose the animal instincts of the market. 

This certainly is a “fresh” look at Milton Friedman.  It’s also wrong.  I don’t think Friedman ever thought that in advocating that humans be freer, he was advocating letting loose “animal instincts.”  Animals act far more like governments—that is, they use force against their competitors—than like peaceful market participants. 

But with market forces now seemingly gone feral, disenchantment with regulation has given way to demands for fresh oversight, placing Mr. Friedman’s intellectual legacy under fresh scrutiny. 

Unfortunately, Goodman doesn’t say how market forces have gone feral.  Government remains feral and government seems poised to use more force against more victims, but how markets do that is beyond me.  As for Friedman’s intellectual legacy, or anyone else’s, fresh scrutiny is always good.  You won’t find any of it in Goodman’s article, though. 

Just as the Depression remade government’s role in economic life, bringing jobs programs and an expanded welfare system, the current downturn has altered the balance. 

But wait a minute.  The Depression did alter the balance, increasing government power at the expense of people’s freedom dramatically.  Very few Depression-era programs were ended.  We’re still stuck with the SEC, agricultural subsidies, welfare, and Social Security.  Moreover, every president after Franklin Roosevelt increased government power, often, as with LBJ (Great Society), Nixon (price controls, OSHA, and EPA), and Bush Jr. (No Child Left Behind, nationalization of two industries), substantially.  So how can the current downturn alter the balance?  We’ve been moving away from economic freedom for 80 years.  (Herbert Hoover began what really should be called a mini-New Deal.)  How can more government programs alter the balance? 

As Wall Street, Main Street and Pennsylvania Avenue seethe with recriminations, a bipartisan chorus has decided that unfettered markets are in need of fettering. Bailouts, stimulus spending and regulations dominate the conversation. 

It would be more accurate to say, “a bipartisan chorus has decided that fettered markets need to be fettered more.”  But that doesn’t have the same ring, does it? 

In short, the nation steeped in the thinking of a man who blamed government for the Depression now beseeches government to lift it to safety. 

So if the nation is “steeped in the thinking of a man who blamed government for the Depression,” wouldn’t you expect most people to have, until recently, “blamed government for the Depression”?  Is that really what Goodman perceives?  It’s not what my students think when they start out in my class.  Nor is it what their parents think.  Where is Goodman getting his information? 

If Mr. Friedman, who died in 2006, were still among us, he would surely be unhappy with this turn. 

Amen, brother.  Goodman finally got one right. 

“What Milton Friedman said was that government should not interfere,” said Allen Sinai, chief global economist for Decision Economics Inc., a consulting group. “It didn’t work. We now are looking at one of the greatest real estate busts of all time. The free market is not geared to take care of the casualties, because there’s no profit motive. There’s no market incentive to deal with the unemployed or those who have lost their homes.” 

Where do I begin?  Sinai’s first statement is true.  But his second statement?  How could he say that not having government interfere didn’t work when through the whole era being discussed, government interfered?  Even if you were a dyed-in-the-wool advocate of government interference, you couldn’t make Sinai’s statement because throughout that era we had massive government interference.  And what are we to make of Sinai’s statement that the “free market is not geared to take care of casualties”?  Has he heard of insurance?  It’s a free-market way of taking care of casualties.  And there’s no profit motive?  Huh?  People don’t want to make profits?  And there certainly is a “market incentive to deal with the unemployed or those who have lost their homes.”  Employers deal with the unemployed through markets all the time—by hiring them.  And people who have lost their homes still want a place to live and so property owners want to deal with them by renting to them. 

To Mr. Friedman, such sentiments, when turned into policy, deprived the economy of the vibrancy of market forces. 

Somewhat true, but overstated.  One of Milton’s favorite lines was one from Adam Smith: “There is much ruin in a nation.”  He once explained to me that that meant that a whole lot of things can go wrong, and government can mess things up in many ways, but the desire to better ourselves can still make markets work. 

Born in Brooklyn in 1912 to immigrant parents who worked briefly in sweatshops, Mr. Friedman retained a sense that America was a land of opportunity with ample rewards for the hard-working. 

True. 

His intellectual bent was forged as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, a base for those who saw themselves as guardians of classical economics in a world then under the spell of woolly-headed revisionists. 

Not exactly.  The marginal revolution of 1870 had upset the classical school.  The Chicago School economists of the 1930s believed in the marginal revolution.  And many of them advocated, at the same time, a great deal of government intervention.  Read Henry Simons’s work of that era and see if you would ever dream of calling him an advocate of laissez-faire. 

The chief object of their scorn was John Maynard Keynes, and his message that government had to juice the economy with spending during times of duress. 

Not even close.  Milton Friedman was a Keynesian at least into his late thirties.  The shift in his thinking was gradual, so much so that he could never identify—we talked about this—when he became a non-Keynesian.   

That notion dominated policy in the years after the Depression. Mr. Friedman would spend much of his career assailing it: He argued that government should simply manage the supply of money — to keep it growing with the economy — then step aside and let the market do its magic. 

True.  But I don’t recall Friedman ever using the word “magic.”  The way markets work is a completely understandable result of private property and freedom. 

So firm was his regard for market forces, so deep his disdain for government, that Mr. Friedman once said: “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there would be a shortage of sand.” 

I didn’t know that was his line, but it’s a good one. 

This antagonism toward bureaucracy seemed to spring from Mr. Friedman’s conception of his country as a bastion of rugged individualism. During an interview on PBS in 2000, he noted that Adam Smith, the father of classical economics, published his canonical work, “The Wealth of Nations,” in 1776, “the same year as the American Revolution.” 

Basically correct.  But his antagonism toward bureaucracy also sprang from his empiricism.  He saw how badly bureaucracy worked and how well economic freedom works. 

He spoke in the interview of his concern at the end of World War II that socialism was gaining adherents because countries had been forced to organize collectively to produce armaments. 

“You came out of the war with the widespread belief that the war had demonstrated that central planning would work,” Mr. Friedman said. “The left, in particular, … interpreted Russia as a successful experiment in central planning.” 

True. 

Mr. Friedman’s brand of libertarianism rested on the assumption that economic and political freedom were one and the same. It meshed with and fed the cold war thinking of his time, as the United States offered up capitalism as liberty itself in contrast to the authoritarian Soviet Union. 

The first sentence is absolutely false.  Friedman argued, in one of the classic passages in Capitalism and Freedom, that a great deal of economic freedom is required if we are to have political freedom.  He always distinguished clearly between them. 

Among professional economists, Mr. Friedman’s analytical mastery was near-universally admired. 

True. 

His first breakthrough came in the 1950s with his idea that people’s savings and spending were not a function of psychological factors, but based on rational estimations of wealth. 

That’s actually a nice statement of Friedman’s “permanent income theory of the consumption function.” 

His greatest contribution came the following decade, when Mr. Friedman dismantled the consensus view that inflation was a tolerable byproduct of high employment.  

No.  Friedman’s biggest contribution was his book, co-authored with Anna Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, their analytical contribution to, among other things, the view that Federal Reserve monetary policy was the major contributor to the Great Depression.  It was this work that led, four decades later, to Bernanke’s aforementioned apology.   

He demonstrated that high inflation would eventually cost jobs, as businesses were discouraged to invest by the higher wages they had to pay. 

Not even close.  Probably what Goodman is referring to is Friedman’s insight, in his 1967 Presidential address to the American Economics Association, that there is no long-run tradeoff between inflation and unemployment.  Friedman made an argument that Friedrich Hayek had made years earlier.  Friedman argued that an unanticipated spurt in inflation could reduce unemployment because unemployed workers would be “fooled” into accepting jobs at high nominal wages that were really low real wages.  Once workers figured this out, Friedman argued, unemployment would creep up to the “natural rate.” 

“This triumph, more than anything else, confirmed Milton Friedman’s status as a great economist’s economist, whatever one may think of his other roles,” Paul Krugman, an economist (and a New York Times columnist) wrote last year in The New York Review of Books. 

Overstated.  Friedman made steady headway all through the 1960s.   

Mr. Friedman captured the era with a new formulation known as monetarism: that the government should gradually and predictably inject cash into the financial system, and then let the market figure out where it should go. 

That’s one of the worst statements of monetarism I’ve seen.  Monetarism is the theory that monetary policy matters more than fiscal policy in its ability to affect nominal GDP, and that changes in the velocity of money are slow and predictable.  Actually, for the best succinct statement of monetarism, see Ben McCallum’s article, “Monetarism,” in David R. Henderson, ed., The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, Liberty Fund, 2008. 

“Any honest Democrat will admit that we are now all Friedmanites,” Lawrence H. Summers, the Harvard economist and former Clinton administration Treasury secretary, wrote in an appreciation published in this newspaper when Mr. Friedman died. “He has had more influence on economic policy as it is practiced around the world today than any other modern figure.” 

Actually, I think Larry overstated the case.  I think you could be honest and not be a Friedmanite. 

But the reviews for Mr. Friedman’s work grow mixed when the subject moves to his role as chief proselytizer in the drive to reduce the role of government in public life. 

Too vague to evaluate.  Whose reviews?  He doesn’t say.  The reviews of Friedman’s work as proselytizer have always been mixed. 

He laid out a blueprint in his 1962 book, “Capitalism and Freedom,” calling for the end of the military draft, the abolition of the licensing of doctors and the creation of “education vouchers” that parents could use to send children to private schools, injecting competition into public education. 

True. 

Two years later, Mr. Friedman put those principles to work as an economic adviser to the presidential campaign of Senator Barry Goldwater, a Republican from Arizona. The campaign called for the abolition of government oversight of the energy, telephone and airline industries and the dismantling of the Social Security system and national parks. 

That would have been nice, but I’m virtually positive that it’s untrue.  Goldwater said nothing about the energy, telephone, or airline industries: at least in all the books I’ve read about his campaign, I don’t recall a thing ever said about those issues.  He also did not call for dismantling national parks, whatever that means.  As for Social Security, Goldwater did say a few times that it should be voluntary but that thought did not rise to the level of campaign promise.   

Mr. Goldwater took a drubbing at the hands of Lyndon Johnson. Mr. Friedman would remain in the policy wilderness until the rise of President Reagan. Then, his notions about rolling back government took on the force of dogma. 

The first sentence is true.  The second is wildly inaccurate.  Friedman was active in the push to eliminate the draft, serving as a key member of the President’s Commission on the All-Volunteer Force in 1969, which agreed 14-0 with one abstention, to recommend ending the draft.  Call me crazy, but I think that removing the government’s gun from the heads of two million men every year is a little bit of an accomplishment.  Friedman was also active in various state tax limitation campaigns, which he always had more confidence in than any presidential candidate.  The statement about dogma is typically overdone; more’s the pity. 

This was so not only in the United States, but also throughout much of the world. As former Iron Curtain countries embraced free markets, they did so with Mr. Friedman’s books in hand. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank leaned heavily on his ideas in prescribing policies for countries from Asia to Latin America. 

The first sentence is correct.  The third is not.  They talked a good game but the IMF and World Bank still handed out taxpayers’ money to ruthless governments.   

“Among the cognoscenti, he became the figure that represented the war against the overwhelming welfare state,” said Hernando de Soto, a prominent Peruvian economist. “The idea that people are responsible for progress far more than government. One should reserve most of the action for the private sector. From Brazil to Mexico, that idea is still in place.” 

Even Mr. De Soto overstates.  That idea is in place in Mexico?  Where does it show up in Mexico’s policies? 

But Mr. De Soto faulted Mr. Friedman for failing to temper his admonitions with an understanding of poverty and income inequality. 

“The problem with Milton Friedman and his fellow libertarians is they never took into consideration the importance of class,” Mr. De Soto said. “They ignored the way elites were able to distort the policies they prescribed for their own benefit.” 

Well, I guess De Soto said it, but that doesn’t represent Friedman’s views.  Friedman has always been outspoken about well-heeled businesses seeking tariffs, import quotas, and regulation of their competitors.  Maybe De Soto has as much of a tin ear as Peter Goodman. 

In much of Latin America, economic growth never reached the poor, laying ground for the socialist backlash now led by Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez. 

True.  But this is hardly a comment on Friedman’s beliefs in markets. Venezuela has had a combination of socialism and fascism for decades. 

In the United States, the reconsideration of the Friedman doctrine came via the global financial crisis that has resulted from the collapse of American real estate. Many economists blame regulators for ignoring warning signs that banks and investors were growing reckless. One Friedman acolyte has taken the brunt of such criticisms — Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve. 

If many economists blame regulators, couldn’t this reporter name three?  And what is their case?  And does he even consider the tremendous moral hazard that results precisely because of regulation via deposit insurance and implicit government guarantees?  Nope. 

But as America reaches for regulation to tame the markets, the keepers of the Friedman flame remain resolute that government is no solution. 

True.  We do. 

“Friedman taught some fundamental long-run truths and he was adept and skilled and almost brilliant at getting them into the public domain,” said Allan H. Meltzer, an economist at Carnegie Mellon. “Now we’ve come into a crisis that has dampened enthusiasm for those policies, and we’re headed back into a period of more regulations that will do the same bad things as in the past.” 

Almost?  Well, here my objection is to Allan Meltzer, not Goodman.  Everything else Meltzer said, though, is spot on.   

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After Life #1 Trailer

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Billy Graham on Woody Allen Show 1969

Dick Cavett and Woody 

12 questions for woody 

Woody scene in STARDUST MEMORIES 

Scarlet thinks Woody is innocent 

https://youtu.be/WIX8hunX-KM
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Discussion of Woody’s autobiography 

I listened to this 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

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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:

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Francis Schaeffer passed away on May 15, 1984 and on the 10th anniversary of that date I wrote many skeptics such as Carl Sagan and corresponded with them on the big questions covered by the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Kath: You are an atheist?

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Adrian Rogers on Evolution

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Ravi Zacharias  (March 26, 1946 – May 19, 2020) 

Francis Schaeffer (January 30, 1912 – May 15, 1984^[1]) 

I grew up at Bellevue Baptist Church under the leadership of our pastor Adrian Rogers and I read many books by the Evangelical Philosopher Francis Schaeffer and in 1992 I heard cassette tapes of Ravi Zacharias in all his brilliance in his sessions at Harvard and have had the opportunity to contact many of the evolutionists or humanistic academics that they have mentioned in their works. Many of these scholars have taken the time to respond back to me in the last 20 years and some of the names  included are  Ernest Mayr (1904-2005), George Wald (1906-1997), Carl Sagan (1934-1996),  Robert Shapiro (1935-2011), Nicolaas Bloembergen (1920-),  Brian Charlesworth (1945-),  Francisco J. Ayala (1934-) Elliott Sober (1948-), Kevin Padian (1951-), Matt Cartmill (1943-) , Milton Fingerman (1928-), John J. Shea (1969-), , Michael A. Crawford (1938-), Paul Kurtz (1925-2012), Sol Gordon (1923-2008), Albert Ellis (1913-2007), Barbara Marie Tabler (1915-1996), Renate Vambery (1916-2005), Archie J. Bahm (1907-1996), Aron S “Gil” Martin ( 1910-1997), Matthew I. Spetter (1921-2012), H. J. Eysenck (1916-1997), Robert L. Erdmann (1929-2006), Mary Morain (1911-1999), Lloyd Morain (1917-2010),  Warren Allen Smith (1921-), Bette Chambers (1930-),  Gordon Stein (1941-1996) , Milton Friedman (1912-2006), John Hospers (1918-2011), Michael Martin (1932-).Harry Kroto (1939-), Marty E. Martin (1928-), Richard Rubenstein (1924-), James Terry McCollum (1936-), Edward O. WIlson (1929-), Lewis Wolpert (1929), Gerald Holton(1922-), Martin Rees (1942-), Alan Macfarlane (1941-),  Roald Hoffmann (1937-), Herbert Kroemer (1928-), Thomas H. Jukes(1906-1999) and  Ray T. Cragun (1976-).

 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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May 1, 2020

Woody Allen c/o NY

Dear Woody,

You got to take the time to watch the film series AFTERLIFE on Netflix since Ricky Gervais, you and Solomon in ECCLESIASTES talk about so many of the same nihilistic themes on life!!!

Woody on pages 73-74 of your autobiography you asserted:

 I still have. The few areas where the problems are not so embedded, where one needs a little help, a push, maybe I got some relief. (I can go to a Turkish bath without having to buy out the room.) For me the value was having a person to be around to share my suffering with; hitting with the pro in tennis. Also for me a big plus was the delusion I was helping myself. In the blackest times it’s nice to feel you’re not just lying dormant, a passive slug being pelted by the irrational lunacy of the universe, or even by tsuris of your own making. It’s important to believe you’re doing something about it. The world and the people in it may have their boots on your throat, stomping the very life out of you, but you’re going to change all of that, you’re taking heroic action. You’re free-associating. You’re remembering those dreams. Maybe writing them down. At least once a week you’re going to discuss this with a trained expert, and together you will understand the awful emotions causing you to be sad, frightened, raging, despairing, and suicidal. 

The fact that solving these problems is illusory and you will always remain the same tormented wretch, unable to ask the baker for sehnecken because the word embarrasses you, doesn’t matter. The illusion you’re doing something to help yourself helps you. You somehow feel a little better, a little less despondent. You pin your hopes on a Godot who never comes, but the thought he might show up with answers helps you get through the enveloping nightmare. Like religion, where the illusion gets one through. And being in the arts, I envy those people who derive solace from the belief that the work they created will live on and be much discussed and somehow, like the Catholic with his afterlife, so the artist’s «legacy» will make him immortal. The catch here is that all the people discussing the legacy and how great the artist’s work is are alive and are ordering pastrami, and the artist is somewhere in an urn or underground in Queens. All the people standing over Shakespeare’s grave and singing his praises means a big goose egg to the Bard, and a day will come—a far-off day, but be sure it definitely is coming—when all Shakespeare’s plays, for all their brilliant plots and hoity-toity iambic pentameter, and every dot of Seurat’s will be gone along with each atom in the universe. In fact, the universe will be gone and there will be no place to have your hat blocked. After all, we are an accident of physics. And an awkward accident at that. Not the product of intelligent design but, if anything, the work of a crass bungler.

Woody you are saying that it is the illusion that counts the most becaise it gives you a false hope that keeps you going. I think you know how sad that is in reality. Just because we pretend doesn’t make it so.

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.

The Absurdity of Life without God

William Lane Craig

SUMMARY

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.

“If each individual person passes out of existence when he dies, then what ultimate meaning can be given to his life? Does it really matter whether he ever existed at all? It might be said that his life was important because it influenced others or affected the course of history. Twentieth-century man came to understand this. Read Waiting for Godot bySamuel Beckett. During this entire play two men carry on trivial conversation while waiting for a third man to arrive, who never does. Our lives are like that, Beckett is saying; we just kill time waiting—for what, we don’t know. In a tragic portrayal of man, Beckett wrote another play in which the curtain opens revealing a stage littered with junk. For thirty long seconds, the audience sits and stares in silence at that junk. Then the curtain closes. That’s all.”

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.
• [2]Richard Taylor, Ethics, Faith, and Reason (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1985), 90, 84.
• [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.
• [9]Richard Wurmbrand, Tortured for Christ (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1967), 34.
• [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 YOU, 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 the comments of Francis Schaeffer on ECCLESIASTES:

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. 

The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.

Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002

PS: What is the meaning of life? Find it in the end of the open letter I wrote to Ricky Gervais on April 23, 2020 and it was published on my blog under the title Open Letter #6 to Ricky Gervais on comparison of the Tony of AFTER LIFE to the Solomon of ECCLESIASTES, Both are searching for answers UNDER THE SUN but are coming up empty!.

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Below is the workforce of THE TAMBURY GAZETTE 

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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!!!

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Part 1 “Why have integrity in Godless Darwinian Universe where Might makes Right?”

Part 2 “My April 14, 2016 Letter to Ricky mentioned Book of Ecclesiastes and the Meaninglessness of Life”

Part 3 Letter about Brandon Burlsworth concerning suffering and pain and evil in the world.  “Why didn’t Jesus save her [from cancer]?” (Tony’s 10 year old nephew George in episode 2)

Part 4 Letter on Solomon on Death Tony in episode one, “It should be everyone’s moral duty to kill themselves.”

Part 5 Letter on subject of Learning in Ecclesiastes “I don’t read books of fiction but mainly science and philosophy”

Part 6 Letter on Luxuries in Ecclesiastes Part 6, The Music of AFTERLIFE (Part A)

Part 7 Letter on Labor in Ecclesiastes My Letter to Ricky on Easter in 2017 concerning Book of Ecclesiastes and the legacy of a person’s life work

Part 8 Letter on Liquor in Ecclesiastes Tony’s late wife Lisa told him, “Don’t get drunk all the time alright? It will only make you feel worse in the log run!”

Part 9 Letter on Laughter in Ecclesiastes , I said of laughter, “It is foolishness;” and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?” Ecclesiastes 2:2

Part 10 Final letter to Ricky on Ladies in Ecclesiastes “I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song, and—most exquisite of all pleasures— voluptuous maidens for my bed…behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun” Ecclesiastes 2:8-11.

Part 11 Letter about Daniel Stanhope and optimistic humanism  “If man has been kicked up out of that which is only impersonal by chance , then those things that make him man-hope of purpose and significance, love, motions of morality and rationality, beauty and verbal communication-are ultimately unfulfillable and thus meaningless.” (Francis Schaeffer)

Part 12 Letter on how pursuit of God is only way to get Satisfaction Dan Jarrell “[In Ecclesiastes] if one seeks satisfaction they will never find it. In fact, every pleasure will be fleeting and can not be sustained, BUT IF ONE SEEKS GOD THEN ONE FINDS SATISFACTION”

Part 13 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Solomon realizing he will die just as a dog will die “For men and animals both breathe the same air, and both die. So mankind has no real advantage over the beasts; what an absurdity!” Ecclesiastes

Part 14 Letter to Stephen Hawking on 3 conclusions of humanism and Bertrand Russell destruction of optimistic humanism. “That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms—no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”(Bertrand Russell, Free Man’s Worship)

Part 15 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Leonardo da Vinci and Solomon and Meaningless of life “I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It’s smoke—and spitting into the wind” Ecclesiastes Book of Ecclesiastes Part 15 “I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It’s smoke—and spitting into the wind” Ecclesiastes 2:17

Part 16 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Solomon’s longing for death but still fear of death and 5 conclusions of humanism on life UNDER THE SUN. Francis Schaeffer “Life is just a series of continual and unending cycles and man is stuck in the middle of the cycle. Youth, old age, Death. Does Solomon at this point embrace nihilism? Yes!!! He exclaims that the hates life (Ecclesiastes 2:17), he longs for death (4:2-3) Yet he stills has a fear of death (2:14-16)”

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Mandeep Dhillon as Sandy on her first assignment in ‘After Life’. (Twitter)

A still from ‘After Life’ that captures the vibe of the Tambury Gazette. (Twitter)

Michael Scott of THE OFFICE (USA) with Ricky Gervais 

After Life on Netflix stars Ricky Gervais as a bereaved husband (Image: Netflix)

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Psychiatrist played by Paul Kaye seen below.

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Tony Johnson with his dog Brandi seen below:

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John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 2)

August 1, 2013 – 12:10 am

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)

July 30, 2013 – 1:32 am

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: “Why I believe the Bible is true”

July 9, 2013 – 8:38 am

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)

The Old Testament is Filled with Fulfilled Prophecy by Jim Wallace

June 24, 2013 – 9:47 am

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)

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part M “Old Testament prophecy fulfilled?”Part 3(includes film DEATH BY SOMEONE’S CHOICE)

April 19, 2013 – 1:52 am

  I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control  and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit|Comments (0)

Evidence for the Bible

March 27, 2013 – 9:43 pm

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

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HEFNER AT HOME: THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN BACHELOR PAD

Apr 11, 2016

Hefner and his bunnies at the original Playboy Mansion, Chicago, 1966. Photograph by Burt Glinn/MagnumPhoto

“IN MY FATHER’S HOUSE ARE MANY MANSIONS”—JOHN 14:2

Editor’s note: News that the Playboy Mansion in Holmby Hills is on the block for $200 million reminded us of this essay from Man of the World No. 11, in which Steve Garbarino assesses the architectural legacy of the original swinging bachelor …

When Hugh Hefner was drafting the image of his ideal Playboy reader—a literate and liberated sort, who also enjoyed a nice set of cans—his ideas went far beyond silk bedsheets, martini shakers, and one-night stands with stewardesses, a dog-eared copy of the latest Kinsey Report laid conspicuously on the nightstand.

In fact, one of his most lasting contributions to Western culture might be in the realms of architecture and design, areas of interest that allowed him to round out his readers’ world. After inventing the Playboy bunny, he laid the floor plans for another cultural icon: the bachelor pad. Raised in Chicago amid the buildings of Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright, Hefner was an early champion of midcentury modern. He was also a student of human nature, having earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Hefner’s erudite interiors were fully automated, streamlined machines for high-end living, with doorless quarters to encourage debauchery. In contrast to today’s man caves and the musty drawing rooms of yore (where men lounged in cracked leather chairs and harrumphed into their cognac snifters), Hefner’s renderings were chockablock with gizmos and designed to seduce, with linear open plans so a man could smoke his pipe anywhere he damn well pleased.

Hefner in bed, 1966. Courtesy of Playboy.

Remote control in hand, he could also draw the curtains, open the garage door, pop open the wet bar, or click on the hooded fireplace, all from the comfort of his two-piece Eames lounge. You could say Hefner saw his reader, a sort of 007 with a license to lady kill, as the future of American manhood. His reasoning was sound: After surviving the horrors of WWII and Korea, didn’t every guy deserve a castle all his own?In the gorgeously rendered architectural and design drawings that appeared regularly in Playboy’s pages from the early fifties to 1979, the classic men’s den, a secluded habitat equal parts fantasy and function, radiated out into every room of the house.

“THE NOTION OF THE SINGLE MAN BEGAN IN THE 1950S. THE IDEA OF THE BACHELOR AS A SEPARATE LIFE WAS NEW AND OBSCURE,” HEFNER SAID.

These renderings, featuring recognizable midcentury furnishings and the entertainment console gadgets of the day, were often accompanied by profiles of the great modern minimalists. His interest in residential architecture for the upscale single male culminated in the Playboy Penthouse Apartment (designed by Chrysalis architects and featured in a 1956 issue), with its echoes of Neutra and the Eames Case Study House. But it wasn’t until May of 1962, when the magazine published its ambitious pictorial, “Posh Plans for Exciting Urban Living!” that the design world took notice.

BACHELOR PAD ESSENTIALS

The master bedroom of the Playboy Penthouse Apartment designed by Chrysalis architects, 1956. Courtesy of Playboy.

The renderings of the so-called Playboy Town House, drawn up by architect and designer R. Donald Jaye and overseen by Hefner, envisioned a three-level luxury spread, which the magazine described as a “modishly swinging manor” for an “unattached, affluent young man, happily wedded to the infinite advantages of urbia.”

HIS CHICAGO HOUSE BORE A PLAQUE ON THE FRONT DOOR THAT READ, “IF YOU DON’T SWING, DON’T RING,” IN LATIN

Amid the open-plan sprawl—paneled with enough teak to build a second Honey Fitz, and dotted with curvy furnishings by Knoll, Herman Miller, Laverne, and George Nelson—there were show-stopping amenities like an indoor swimming pool, a remote-controlled skylight, a “kitchen-less kitchen” (where drawers and panels hid any evidence of food prep), a twelve-foot upholstered wet bar (because, of course), and the pièce de résistance, a rotating bed, patented by Playboy Enterprises, for work and play. Half a century before the Internet of Things, a man could control his home’s sound and lighting, open and shut curtains, and even pop the toaster from the comfort of his circular sex bed. (Later, Hefner would equip the “Big Bunny,” his converted DC-30 jet, with a similar model, which had become something of a trademark.) “The gadgetry helped give it a James Bond mystique,” he told the Times.

The Playboy Town House predicted many common twenty-first century residential features, with its sprawling open plan and built-in hi-fi system, variously dubbed a “media wall,” “Electronic Entertainment Wall,” and “Wonder Wall.” Inspired by van der Rohe, the house concealed all its internal wiring, and anything else that might disrupt the streamlined effect. This was a place in which you didn’t trip over clutter. To paraphrase Hefner, a civilized man doesn’t leave his dirty socks scattered about.

“Wonder Wall” concept drawing by Syd Mead, 1971. Courtesy of Playboy.

Truth be told, Hefner was never all that removed from his readership. A fantasist who enjoyed vicarious thrills, he lived for a time in his own office, sleeping on a pull-out cot after his wife tossed him out, and spending most of his days in pajamas. And his own homes—both his limestone-and-brick behemoth on Chicago’s Gold Coast and the more infamous digs in Holmby Hills, California, currently the most expensive house for sale in the the United States, furniture included—were hardly the stuff of modernist dreams. A fan of dorm-style living and outré touches (his Chicago house bore a plaque on the front door that read, “If you don’t swing, don’t ring,” in Latin), Hef rarely followed his own blueprints.

But others certainly have, and still can. In 2014, the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt featured an exhibition of all things architecture published in Playboy from 1953 to 1979. (Hefner actually donated the original mansion to the Art Institute of Chicago, in 1974; it is now luxury condos.) And in 2011, to coincide with Playboy’s fiftieth anniversary, legendary architect Frank Gehry was asked to draw up his own plans for the modern bachelor pad.

While spectacular, like most reboots, it just wasn’t the same.

written by STEVE GARBARINO

Our church FELLOWSHIP BIBLE CHURCH sponsors HIDDEN CREEK REENTRY CENTER,  Assisting incarcerated individuals with a successful transition to their community.

Hidden Creek Reentry Center added 4 new photos.

January 13 ·

So proud of these guys… They had the honor to go with Mr.Glover yesterday to a school to speak to some children.

Hidden Creek Reentry Center added 3 new photos.

August 7, 2016 · Little Rock, AR ·

Well its been a eye jerker today… great tears of joy!! I have watched these guys grow so much… I pray they continue to grow out there… next month they graduate the program!!

Hidden Creek Reentry Center added 2 new photos.

April 16, 2016 ·

In a nutshell – Its simple and uncomplicated, giving of yourself and being of service to others is one of the best ways to strengthen your own recovery. In essence, you give and you receive. Twice blessed.

Hidden Creek Reentry Center updated their cover photo.

April 13, 2016 ·

Ernest Hemingway A Clean Well-lighted Place – Complete Narration

Published on Nov 20, 2012

Complete narration by DB. Enjoy the audio and interpretation on a classic short story.

Woody Allen talks ‘Midnight in Paris’

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Letter on Racial Equality, Drugs and Alcohol and Solomon  I can’t do anything to go back and  save those who have passed on in the past, but I can do something to encourage those who have obstacles to overcome today!!!! David Plant,

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We can’t bring back those we have lost like Bobbie Arnstein but we can help those struggling now to overcome their obstacles with drugs and alcohol!!!

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Dick Gregory and Tim Boxer at the Chicago Playboy Club, 1961

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Handshake between Jerry Harkness (Loyola) and Joe Dan Gold (MSU). LOYOLA won 61-51 that day and went on to win National Championship in 1963!!!

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This picture below is the cover picture of the Facebook page for the ministry HIDDEN CREEK REENTRY CENTER, and this ministry has the purpose of assisting incarcerated individuals with a successful transition to their community. I have had the joy of giving some of my time to help these gentlemen.

Hidden Creek Reentry Center in Little Rock, Arkansas

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This picture below is the cover picture of the Facebook page for the ministry HIDDEN CREEK REENTRY CENTER, and this ministry has the purpose of assisting incarcerated individuals with a successful transition to their community. I have had the joy of giving some of my time to help these gentlemen.

Hidden Creek Reentry Center in Little Rock, Arkansas

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FILE – In this May 12, 1959, American novelist Ernest Hemingway, left, speaks with actors Alec Guinness, center, and Noel Coward in Sloppy Joe’s Bar during the making of Sir Carol Reed’s film version of “Our Man in Havana,” based on Graham Greene’s best seller, in Havana, Cuba. Sloppy Joe’s will be reopened in February 2013 by the state-owned tourism company Habaguanex, part of an ambitious revitalization project by the Havana City Historian’s Office, which since the 1990’s has transformed block after block of crumbling ruins into rehabilitated buildings along vibrant cobblestone streets, giving residents and tourists from all over the chance to belly up to the same bar that served thirsty celebrities like Rock Hudson, Babe Ruth and Ernest Hemingway. (AP Photo, File)

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Larry Joe Speaks  (August 20, 1947 to April 7, 2017)

____ April 25, 2017Hugh HefnerPlayboy Mansion16236 Charing Cross RoadLos Angeles, CA 90024

Dear Hugh,

As I have promised I am writing you over and over until I go through all 6 things that Solomon pursued to try to finding a lasting meaning in his life UNDER THE SUN in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Today we will look at LIQUOR.In this letter I am looking at three things.FIRST, I want to compliment you on your stand for racial equality.SECOND, I want to look the problem of escapism and what Solomon had to say about it concerning the path of liquor.THIRD, I want to look at a portion of the sermon WHO IS JESUS? by Adrian Rogers. (This is the sermon that my good friend Larry Speaks gave to hundreds of people during the last 20 years of his life. Larry put his faith alone in Christ in the mid 1990’s and he passed away on April 7, 2017 at age 69.)Let me start off by saying something very nice about you and that is you have always stood for racial equality. I thought about that again recently when I read the article Connecticut’s 111-Game Winning Streak Ends With Loss to Mississippi State by JERÉ LONGMAN on APRIL 1, 2017.You might wonder why that reminded me of you?I got to attend the graduation of my niece from Miss St University last May and I noticed that the banners that hung down from the ceiling showing that Miss St had won their conference in men’s basketball in 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, and 1963 but they had only chose to attend the tournament in 1963. I wondered why. I researched out the reason and I discovered that the Miss St administration did want their white basketball team to play against basketball teams in the NCAA Basketball Tournament that had black players on the team. However, in 1963 the team quietly and secretly left town in a private airplane and flew to play in the 1963 playoffs without the administration finding out. That act of bravery by the part of the Miss St team reminded me of you the other day when I read about this huge upset the Miss St women’s basketball team  had.WHY DID I THINK OF YOU, HUGH? I have been reading  a lot about you in the last few months and I  think this article below sums up best your efforts in the area of racial equality.

Hugh Hefner Recalls His Role As An Activist For Civil Rights

May 13, 2011 11:00 PMBy Pat Harvey

“Playboy was the first mainstream club, non-black club that actually put on stage black comedians,” Hefner said. “Even in Las Vegas Black performers that performed on, including Sammy Davis, who was a very close friend of mine, would appear on stage, but they couldn’t walk through the casino. They had to walk through the back entrance.”

“When we started franchising, when they refused our members, the black members, entrance, I said, ‘you can’t do that, these are members of our club.’ And we literally bought back the franchised clubs,” he said.

Hefner was seen with a young Jesse Jackson, as he met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“When Dr. King came to the Playboy Mansion, he was in Chicago specifically to deal with the segregation that existed in Chicago. And that is really how I met Jesse and I was very actively involved after King’s death in the funding of PUSH and the Rainbow Coalition,” he said.

“In fact, the last published piece written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. before his death appeared in Playboy. ‘Playboy’ magazine became the platform for freedom in a time of restriction.

“The very first interview was Miles Davis and he didn’t talk so much about music, he talked about wishes and equality,” Hefner said.Next I want to turn to a subject that is very sad indeed and it is the attempt by many today to find  their meaning in life through drugs and alcohol. Perhaps they are trying to escape the hard realities of life by taking this path. Like everyone around us, I too have many close friends and relatives who have fallen into this trap. I have a great deal of compassion for these individuals. In fact, several times this month I have taken time to drive individuals from a facility that my church sponsors to AA meetings. We want these individuals to overcome their addictions and live in victory.  I can’t do anything to go back and  save those who have passed on in the past, but I can do something to encourage those who have obstacles to overcome today!!!!

Our church FELLOWSHIP BIBLE CHURCH sponsors HIDDEN CREEK REENTRY CENTER,  Assisting incarcerated individuals with a successful transition to their community. I have had the joy of giving some of my time to help these gentlemen. In fact, I just back from volunteering  at the center tonight. These individuals have made a 6 month commitment to taking the path towards sobriety and many of them attend our church too.  Let me share some posts from their Facebook page:

Hidden Creek Reentry Center January 13 ·

So proud of these guys… They had the honor to go with Mr.Glover yesterday to a school to speak to some children.

August 7, 2016 · Little Rock, AR ·

Well its been a eye jerker today… great tears of joy!! I have watched these guys grow so much… I pray they continue to grow out there… next month they graduate the program!!April 16, 2016 ·

In a nutshell – Its simple and uncomplicated, giving of yourself and being of service to others is one of the best ways to strengthen your own recovery. In essence, you give and you receive. Twice blessed._______I have just finished the book about a man who had a tough time breaking drug addition and the it is entitled,  FEARLESS: The undaunted courage and ultimate sacrifice of Navy Seal Team Six Operator Adam Brownby Eric Blehm.This is how the book opens:

When Adam Brown woke up on March 17, 2010, he didn’t know he would die that night in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan—but he was ready….Adam Brown did understand what it meant to disappoint, to feel the shame he’d experienced on a hot, humid August afternoon years earlier when his parents had him arrested. “It’s time for you to face what you’ve done,” his father had told him in 1996, just before Adam was handcuffed and escorted to the backseat of the Garland County sheriff’s cruiser. When the deputy slammed the car door shut, Adam watched his mother’s legs buckle, and as she collapsed, his dad caught her and held her tightly against him. She began to cry, and Adam knew he had broken her heart.That vision—of his mother sobbing into his father’s chest—would haunt him for the rest of his life, but it also sparked the journey that defined who he would become. Officially known as a Chief Special Warfare Operator (SEAL), Adam Brown was one of the most respected Special Operations warriors in the U.S. Navy.______________________Recently when I read the book MR PLAYBOY by Steven Watts, I noticed that he gave a great deal of attention to the life of Bobbie Arnstein and he concluded his time on her with these words:___

William Safire in New York Times wrote:

What clear invitation to perjury can there be than such a provisional sentence. It is on thing to give a cooperative witness a break,  entirely another to threaten  to let a defendant rot in the slammer until he or she tells the story the prosecution wants. 

Samuel K. Skinner dropped the case and concluded:

No evidence of unlawful or distribution of cocaine or hard drugs by Mr. Hefner, the corporation or its employees had been adduced. 

Samuel K. Skinner in a personal letter to Hefner came close to an apology:

I am aware that the last year was not an easy one for you or your associates and I truly wish it could have been avoided. I have always felt that any investigation should be conducted without any publicity whatsoever in order to protect the individuals involved.

So Hefner was finally vindicated in a drug case that seemed to have been driven mainly by an anti-Playboy political agenda. But much damage had been done. Most disturbingly a young woman lay dead.  (Bobbie Arnstein )____Why do so many individuals today turn to drugs or liquor?  Many atheists have a hard time getting positive about the ultimate lasting meaning of our lives. Take Woody Allen and Ernest Hemingway for example.  Woody Allen has used comedy as a device of escapism while Hemingway turned to liquor but they both reached the same pessimistic conclusion that life has no lasting meaning.“Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada.” This quote from Hemingway’s short story A Clean Well Lighted Place shows that Ernest Hemingway embraced nihilism.The Spanish word NADA meaning NOTHING. The old man in the story tried the previous week to commit suicide but was saved by his niece, and he saw it as a temporary saving.Hemingway also wrote in his last book THE GARDEN OF EDEN, “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”A sensational bestseller when it appeared in 1986, The Garden of Eden is the last uncompleted novel of Ernest Hemingway, which he worked on intermittently from 1946 until his death in 1961.In you go to You Tube and watch the video Woody Allen talks ‘Midnight in Paris’ which was posted on January 27, 2017 and runs 43 minutes and 37 seconds, you will notice at the 27 minute mark that Woody Allen says:

I have never gotten to the point where I can give an optimistic view of anything. I have these ideas for stories that I hope are entertaining and I am always criticized for being pessimistic or nihilistic. To me this is just a realistic appraisal of life. There are these little Oasis’s these little distractions you get. Last night I was caught up in the Bulls and Heat basketball game on television and for the time being I was thinking about who was going to win. I wasn’t thinking about my mortality or the fact that I am finite and aging. That was not on my mind. Labron James was on my mind and the game. That is the best you can do is get a little  detraction. What I have learned over the years is that there is no other solution to it. There is no satisfying answer. There is no optimistic answer I can give anybody.

The outcome of that basketball game is no less meaningful or no more meaningful than human life if you take the long view of it. You could look at the earth and say who cares about those creatures running around there and just brush it. Ernest Hemingway in one of his stories ( A FAREWELL TO ARMS) is looking at a burning log with ants running on it. This is the kind of thinking that has over powered me over the years and slips into my stories.

Drinking was a large part of Hemingway’s life. Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes also takes a long look at liquor and tries to see if it will bring any satisfaction UNDER THE SUN.

In fact, Solomon  filled his home with the best wine (Eccl 2:3).

Concerning the Book of Ecclesiastes Francis Schaeffer noted: 

Solomon was searching for a meaning in the midst of the details of life. His struggle was to find the meaning of life. Not just plans in life. Anybody can find plans in life. A child can fill up his time with plans of building tomorrow’s sand castle when today’s has been washed away. There is  a difference between finding plans in life and purpose in life. Humanism since the Renaissance and onward has never found it and it has never found it. Modern man has not found it and it has always got worse and darker in a very real way.

Ecclesiastes is the only pessimistic book in the Bible and that is because of the place where Solomon limits himself. He limits himself to the question of human life, life UNDER THE SUN between birth and death and the answers this would give.

In Ecclesiastes 1:8 he drives this home when he states, “All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. THE EYE IS NOT SATISFIED WITH SEEING. NOR IS THE EAR FILLED WITH HEARING.”  Solomon is stating here the fact that there is no final satisfaction because you don’t get to the end of the thing.

What do you do and the answer is to get drunk and this was not thought of in the RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KAHAYYAM:

Ecclesiastes 2:1-3

I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself.” And behold, it too was futility. ² I said of laughter, “It is madness,” and of pleasure, “What does it accomplish?” ³ I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine while my mind was guiding me wisely, and how to take hold of folly, until I could see what good there is for the sons of men to do under heaven the few years of their lives.

The Daughter of the Vine (from the RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KAHAYYAM):

You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse
I made a Second Marriage in my house;
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.

A perfectly good philosophy coming out of Islam, but Solomon is not the first man that thought of it nor the last. In light of what has been presented by Solomon is the solution just to get intoxicated and black the think out? So many people have taken to alcohol and the dope which so often follows in our day. This approach is incomplete, temporary and immature. PAPA HEMINGWAYCAN FIND THE CHAMPAGNE OF PARIS SUFFICIENT FOR A TIME, BUT ONCE HE LEFT HIS YOUTH HE NEVER FOUND IT SUFFICIENT AGAIN. HE HAD A LIFETIME SPENT LOOKING BACK TO PARIS AND THAT CHAMPAGNE AND NEVER FINDING IT ENOUGH.  It is no solution and Solomon says so too.

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Both Woody Allen and Ernest Hemingway like Solomon looked for meaning UNDER THE SUN in what I call the 6 big L words in the Book of Ecclesiastes. These areas are  learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies,luxuries,  and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20). All three men agree with the conclusion of Ecclesiastes 2:17:

¹⁷So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a striving after the wind

Then in last few words in the Book of Ecclesiastes Solomon looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.Now I just want to provide you with the outline of the 3rd point that Adrian Rogers makes in his sermon WHO IS JESUS? I remember discussing this sermon with Larry Speaks. He was so excited that the Bible gave us so much evidence that Christ was who he said he was.If you take the time to look up these verses you will see that Christ fulfilled the prophecies in the Old Testament that had been written hundreds of years before he even existed. Some may doubt that these scriptures were written in advance, but after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls that interpretation is no longer feasible. Contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls and dated back to approximately 200 years before Christ we have copies of portions of manuscripts from EVERY OLD TESTAMENT BOOK IN THE BIBLE (except Esther). Plus we have a complete copy of the Book of Isaiah. With that in mind please take time to read both Old Testament prophecies and the New Testament fulfillment listed below or just google the name PETER STONER.

THE PROPHETIC WITNESS OF THE SCRIPTURES  (Acts 10:43)

1. The theme of the Old Testament is the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Fulfilled prophecy is one of the greatest proofs that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
3. All of the prophets speak in unanimity that Jesus is Lord.
   1. It is estimated that there are more than 300 direct Old Testament prophecies that prophesy the miracle birth and earthly life of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
   2. Micah 5:2
   3. Matthew 2:1
   4. Isaiah 7:14
   5. Isaiah 53:4-5
   6. Isaiah 53:9
   7. Matthew 27:57
   8. Matthew 27:38
   9. Zechariah 11:12
   10. Matthew 26:15
   11. Psalm 22

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221

PS: I have been so blessed to be a part of a ministry such as Hidden Creek Reentry Center. When I think of the pain and suffering that alcoholism and drugs have caused it makes me think of the Christian track HAPPY HOUR that describes such a case and how Christ can turn someone around. I personally have attended a funeral of a dear friend who went to the grave prematurely. It is true that I can do nothing to bring him back, but I do something about the people who are here now who need help. 

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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.”

Featured artist is Jean Lamb

Contemporary Christian Art – The Rt Revd Lord Harries of Pentregarth

Published on Apr 10, 2012

Contrary to much opinion, the current scene of faith-related art is very much alive. There are new commissions for churches and cathedrals, a number of artists pursue their work on the basis of a deeply convinced faith, and other artists often resonate with traditional Christian themes, albeit in a highly untraditional way. The challenge for the artist, stated in the introduction to the course of lectures above, is still very much there: how to retain artistic integrity whilst doing justice to received themes.

This lecture is part of Lord Harries’ series on ‘Christian Faith and Modern Art’. The last century has seen changes in artistic style that have been both rapid and radical. This has presented a particular problem to artists who have wished to express Christian themes.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and…

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website.
http://www.gresham.ac.uk

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From her website:

• About
• My work
• Exhibitions

About

Info :  Born 1957 Hampstead, London.

BA Honours in Fine Art First Class Degree 1979 Reading University

Oxford Certificate in Theology 1984 St Stephens House, Oxford

MA in Fine Art 1988 Nottingham Trent University

Artist and Associate Priest living and practicing in Nottingham

Offering : Public and Private Commissions, Home Gallery, Studio Retreats, Creativity Days, Lectures, Consultancy, Framing and much more.

Studio/Gallery :    St Albans House,  4 Dale Street,  Sneinton,  Nottingham,  NG2 4JX

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Jean Lamb

Mother and Child

Jean Lamb works part time as an artist and part time as a Church of England Deacon in Nottingham. She writes that she turned away from the church when young, but rediscovered Christ in the womb of creation. With the birth of her second child she discovered Christ there and offered him back to God. This is reflected in this statue, which clearly also has echoes of Mary and the Christ child.

Crucifixion

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Related posts:

Ecclesiastes 2 — The Quest For Meaning and the failed examples of Howard Hughes and Hugh Hefner

June 27, 2013 – 12:49 am

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)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE PART 162 A look at the BEATLES Breaking down the song ALL WE NEED IS LOVE Part C (Featured artist is Grace Slick)

May 4, 2017 – 1:40 am

 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)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 158 THE BEATLES (breaking down the song WHY DON’T WE DO IT IN THE ROAD?) Photographer Bob Gomel featured today!

April 6, 2017 – 12:25 am

___________________ 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)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE PART 142 Marvin Minsky Part G (Featured artist is Red Grooms)

December 15, 2016 – 7:18 am

__________ 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)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 118 THE BEATLES (Why was Tony Curtis on cover of SGT PEP?) (Feature on artist Jeffrey Gibson )

June 30, 2016 – 5:35 am

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)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 101 BEATLES,(MANY CHRISTIANS ATTACKED THE BEATLES WHILE FRANCIS SCHAEFFER STUDIED THEIR MUSIC! Part B) Artist featured today is Cartoonist Gahan Wilson

March 3, 2016 – 12:21 am

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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.”

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Francis August Schaeffer (January 30, 1912 – May 15, 1984^[1])

building of king solomon’s temple

The Judgment of Solomon, 1617 by Peter Paul Rubens(1577–1640)

Steel mezzotint engraving by John Sartain
of the 1863 painting by Christian Schussele

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Adrian Pierce Rogers (September 12, 1931 – November 15, 2005)

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Larry Joe Speaks  (August 20, 1947 to April 7, 2017)

On April 16, 2017 is the day we celebrate Easter which is about Christ’s resurrection from the dead!!!

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Hugh Hefner and Barbi Benton at the Playboy Mansion in LA

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Will Smith, Hugh-Hefner, Karyn Parsons and Alfonso Ribeiro at the Playboy Mansion

__Hugh Hefner, Lawrence Fishburne and Dennis Hopper in 2005 at the Playboy Mansion

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__April 16, 2017Hugh HefnerPlayboy Mansion16236 Charing Cross RoadLos Angeles, CA 90024Dear Hugh,

Today is Easter and I wanted to talk to you about that especially at the end of this letter. I hope you got a chance to go to church today. What is Easter about anyway? I can assure you one thing and that it would not have been necessary for Christ to die and be raised again if we could simply EARN our way to heaven. Ironically, I wrote you today about your LABOR (your life’s work).Hugh, you built an empire on the Playboy Magazine and then you attempted to make your PLAYBOY MANSION WEST a showplace for  everything you stood for. In  fact, after touring it Peter O’Toole said, “This is the way God would have done it if he had the money.” I read Steven Watts’ book “MR PLAYBOY: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream” and on page 274 it asserts:Surrounding the mansion were six acres of land with a greenhouse, game-house, guesthouse, sweeping lawns in front and back, and the largest stand of redwoods in Southern California. Almost immediately, however, Hefner decided to extensively renovate the grounds to create a personal fantasy setting.Anthony Haden-Guest in an article for ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE in 1973 noted:“…a mullioned slab of Old Englishry, a gray gleam of ersatz granite in the Southern California sunlight. To the back the image dissolves, re-forms. Sexy vicarage metamorphoses to miniature Versailles.”I have personally visited Versailles in France and I can see from these pictures that Anthony Haden-Guest is right.3000 years ago Solomon reached the same conclusion in the Book of Ecclesiastes concerning his LABOR:I have seen everything that is done UNDER THE SUN, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. (Ecclesiastes 2:14).Therefore, it just seems proper since many times in the past you have been  called a modern day Solomon to  compare you to King Solomon and look at what both you and Solomon have accomplished in the area of LABOR (or his life’s work). For Solomon that basically came down to the labor he commissioned in his building campaigns through out his kingdom plus the effort he put forth building his own palace and the temple in Jerusalem.II Chronicles 9:15-28:

¹⁵ King Solomon made 200 large shields of beaten gold; 600 shekels^[d] of beaten gold went into each shield. ¹⁶ And he made 300 shields of beaten gold; 300 shekels of gold went into each shield; and the king put them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon. ¹⁷ The king also made a great ivory throne and overlaid it with pure gold… ²⁰ All King Solomon’s drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. Silver was not considered as anything in the days of Solomon.²¹ For the king’s ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Hiram. Once every three years the ships of Tarshish used to come bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.

²² Thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. ²³ And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind. ²⁴ Every one of them brought his present, articles of silver and of gold, garments, myrrh, spices, horses, and mules, so much year by year. ²⁵ And Solomon had 4,000 stalls for horses and chariots, and 12,000 horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem.²⁶ And he ruled over all the kings from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt. ²⁷ And the king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone, and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephelah.²⁸ And horses were imported for Solomon from Egypt and from all lands.

1 Kings 7:1-9 English Standard Version (ESV)

Solomon Builds His Palace

7Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, and he finished his entire house.

² He built the House of the Forest of Lebanon….³ And it was covered with cedar above the chambers that were on the forty-five pillars, fifteen in each row. ⁴ There were window frames in three rows, and window opposite window in three tiers. ⁵ All the doorways and windows had square frames, and window was opposite window in three tiers….There was a porch in front with pillars, and a canopy in front of them.

⁷ And he made the Hall of the Throne where he was to pronounce judgment, even the Hall of Judgment. It was finished with cedar from floor to rafters.

⁸ His own house where he was to dwell, in the other court back of the hall, was of like workmanship. Solomon also made a house like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughterwhom he had taken in marriage.

⁹ All these were made of costly stones, cut according to measure, sawed with saws, back and front, even from the foundation to the coping, and from the outside to the great court. 

Ecclesiastes 2:4-11 English Standard Version (ESV)

⁴ I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. ⁵ I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. ⁶ I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. ⁷ I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. ⁸ I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines,^[a] the delight of the sons of man.

⁹ So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me.¹⁰ And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.¹¹ Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

I have read a lot about your life and your life is the closest I can think of to the universal man that Francis Schaeffer talks about in the past. Schaeffer’s two examples are Leonardo da Vinci and Solomon. 

Below are the comments of Francis Schaeffer on Solomon and the Book of Ecclesiastes:

Leonardo da Vinci and Solomon both were universal men searching for the meaning in life. Solomon was searching for a meaning in the midst of the details of life. His struggle was to find the meaning of life. Not just plans in life. Anybody can find plans in life. A child can fill up his time with plans of building tomorrow’s sand castle when today’s has been washed away. There is  a difference between finding plans in life and purpose in life. Humanism since the Renaissance and onward has never found it and it has never found it. Modern man has not found it and it has always got worse and darker in a very real way.

We have here the declaration of Solomon’s universality:

1 Kings 4:30-34

English Standard Version (ESV)

³⁰ so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. ³¹ For he was wiser than all other men…and his fame was in all the surrounding nations. ³² He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. ³³ He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish. ³⁴ And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.

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Here is the universal man and his genius. Solomon is the universal man with a empire at his disposal. Solomon had it all.

Ecclesiastes 1:3

English Standard Version (ESV)

³ What does man gain by all the toil
    at which he toils under the sun?

Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes.

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The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias 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 Chance plus matter.” 

Many have tried sexual exploits just like Solomon did, and many have thrown their efforts into  business too.Sadly Solomon also found the pursuit of great works in his labor just as empty. In Ecclesiastes 2:11 he asserted, “THEN I CONSIDERED ALL THAT MY HANDS HAD DONE AND THE TOLL I HAD EXPENDED IN DOING IT, AND BEHOLD, ALL WAS VANITY AND A STRIVING AFTER WIND, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

HUGH, OF ALL PEOPLE YOU PROBABLY THINK YOU HAVE COME UP WITH SOMETHING TRULY NEW UNDER THE SUN!!!!!!

Many like you have claimed that they have pioneered something new.   But Solomon noted in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”

Holman Old Testament Commentary Volume 14, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon byDaniel Akin and David Moore:

Solomon now moves to the second way he demonstrated that life apart from God has no meaning–that there is nothing new under the sun. At first glance these words seem naive. Saying that there is nothing new seems like an overstatement. Today we have many things like computers and cars that the ancients never had. So how can Solomon make the claim that there is nothing new under the sun?

Solomon’s point is to direct our attention to the fact that things like power, status, wealth, and pleasure are the same things that people have always pursued in search of the “good life.” The “packaging” of these things is certainly different today–cars instead of chariots–but the quest is basically the same. There is no new pursuit that can give meaning and purpose to our lives apart from God.

After the 1972 Super Bowl Dewayne Thomas the star of the game was asked, “What does it feel like to win the ultimate game?” Thomas declared, “If it’s the ultimate game, why is it being played again next year?”His response captures the spirit of this passage.

Many people through history have reminded me of  Solomon because they are looking for  lasting meaning in their life and they are looking in the same  6 areas that King Solomon did in what I call the 6 big L words. He looked into  learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies,luxuries,  and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20).

Then in last few words in the Book of Ecclesiastes he looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is:Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”

I started writing this series of 7 letters to you concerning Solomon and the meaning of life after the death of my good friend Larry Speaks. During the last 20 years of his life Larry would hand out CD’s of Adrian Rogers’ message WHO IS JESUS? and I wanted to share one of the points that is made in that sermon that particularly applies today since it is EASTER:

Simon Peter gave THREE LINES OF EVIDENCE, three witnesses; and we use these same three witnesses when we share Jesus today.  Let’s look at Acts chapter 10:

³⁹ And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, ⁴⁰ but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, ⁴¹ not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. ⁴² And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. ⁴³ To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

I  THE PERSONAL WITNESS OF THE SAINTS (Acts 10:39)

1. The apostles were a diverse group, yet they were united in their witness.  Among them:
   1. John was young, observant and sensitive.
   2. Peter was a rough, hard-working fisherman.
   3. Simon the Zealot was a political activist.
   4. Nathaniel and Thomas both tended to be skeptical and inquiring.
   5. Matthew was a hardened, political businessman.
   6. Andrew was gentle and compassionate.
   7. Philip was a calculating thinker.
   8. James was a straight shooter.
2. They were eyewitnesses of the virtuous life of Jesus.
   1. Acts 10:34 & 38
   2. Matthew 17:1-5
3. They were eyewitnesses of His vicarious death.
   1. Acts 10:39
   2. Deuteronomy 21:23
4. They were eyewitnesses of His victorious resurrection.
   1. Acts 10:40-41

II THE PROPHETIC WITNESS OF THE SCRIPTURES  (Acts 10:43) (We looked at this in a previous letter.)

III THE PERSUASIVE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT  (Acts 10:44)

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Today is Easter and it is a day that Christ died NOT for his own sins because he was sinless,  but for ours (Romans 10:9) so we could receive the free gift of grace (Ephesians 2:8). Through your LABOR you can NOT earn salvation.

Romans 10:8-13 English Standard Version (ESV)

⁸ But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); ⁹ because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. ¹¹ For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”¹² For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. ¹³ For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, Little Rock, AR 72221

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Featured artist is Katrin Sigurdardóttir

Katrín Sigurdardóttir was born in 1967 in Reykjavik and lives and works in New York. With a background in filmmaking and painting, the artist now works in sculpture and installation, creating works that challenge ideas of space, memory, and perception.

Having produced miniature replicas of buildings such as her childhood home and elementary school, as well as models of real and imagined Icelandic topographies, Sigurdardóttir has long considered place as a construction of the mind. Her conceptual installations often distort scale in order to challenge perceptions of time and distance. In addition to employing traditional sculptural techniques, Sigurdardóttir also works with processes such as cartography and architectural model making

Related posts:

Ecclesiastes 2 — The Quest For Meaning and the failed examples of Howard Hughes and Hugh Hefner

June 27, 2013 – 12:49 am

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)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE PART 162 A look at the BEATLES Breaking down the song ALL WE NEED IS LOVE Part C (Featured artist is Grace Slick)

May 4, 2017 – 1:40 am

 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)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 158 THE BEATLES (breaking down the song WHY DON’T WE DO IT IN THE ROAD?) Photographer Bob Gomel featured today!

April 6, 2017 – 12:25 am

___________________ 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)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE PART 142 Marvin Minsky Part G (Featured artist is Red Grooms)

December 15, 2016 – 7:18 am

__________ 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)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 118 THE BEATLES (Why was Tony Curtis on cover of SGT PEP?) (Feature on artist Jeffrey Gibson )

June 30, 2016 – 5:35 am

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)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 101 BEATLES,(MANY CHRISTIANS ATTACKED THE BEATLES WHILE FRANCIS SCHAEFFER STUDIED THEIR MUSIC! Part B) Artist featured today is Cartoonist Gahan Wilson

March 3, 2016 – 12:21 am

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