Open letter to President Obama (Part 497) (Francis Schaeffer The Last Great Modern Theologian by David Hopkins)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 497)

(Emailed to White House on 5-3-13.)

President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I have a pro-life point of view because I am a Christian and I base my views on an interpretation of the Bible. Francis Schaeffer’s teachings probably influenced me more in this area than any other person. In 1979 he teamed up with Dr. C. Everett Koop and put together the film series WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? and here is the first episode with covers the issue of abortion. Since you are also a Christian Mr. President I thought would take a great interest in what they had to say.

Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION

Francis Schaeffer: What Ever Happened to the Human Race? (Full-Length Documentary)


Part 1 on abortion runs from 00:00 to 39:50, Part 2 on Infanticide runs from 39:50 to 1:21:30, Part 3 on Youth Euthanasia runs from 1:21:30 to 1:45:40, Part 4 on the basis of human dignity runs from 1:45:40 to 2:24:45 and Part 5 on the basis of truth runs from 2:24:45 to 3:00:04

Below you will see more about my pro-life views and how Christians like you and me should affect the society around us.

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How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age

Episode 8: The Age Of Fragmentation

Published on Jul 24, 2012

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

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

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

WE NEED TO GET BACK TO THE ANSWERS OF SCRIPTURE!!! David Hopkins rightly notes, “Schaeffer knew these philosophic problems affect the everyday life of believers. These ideas have a flow of influence from philosophy to art to music to general culture. Schaeffer wrote to get ahead of the ideas to positively affect general culture, replacing deceptive philosophy with the answers of scripture.”

Francis Schaeffer


Francis Schaeffer
The Last Great Modern Theologian by David Hopkins

Standing at the melting point 
The reader may wonder why I would write an article about the “last great modern theologian” in a publication that so proudly dedicates itself to post -modern thought and inquiry. In truth, we should not be so arrogant about what the modern legacy has left to us. The contributions of faithful disciples and scholars from previous generations can be of great worth. I would go so far to say even a book review of Augustine’s The City of God or Aquinas’s Summa Theologica would fit nicely into what we are trying to accomplish at Next-Wave. The goal is to re-communicate the worth of our Christian tradition and experience to a postmodern culture. However, the work of Francis Schaeffer is so recent; it is questionably whether his thoughts even need to be re-communicated to a new culture.

I would like to persuade that Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984) stands at the melting point of the modern and postmodern discussion. In some ways, every “modern” theologian after him is increasingly out of date. And any “postmodern” theologian ahead of him was unfortunately out of place in discussing issues of spiritual importance. Why? Schaeffer was deeply concerned with a shift in epistemology (how we know what we know). He observed the shift during the 1960s. While he never labeled it as such, this shift is what we now call postmodernism . (Note: This term was already in existence when discussing art, architecture, philosophy, and literature; theology really didn’t jump into the discussion until postmodern thought proliferated in the 1980s, 3 years after Jean-Francois Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition .)

Francis Schaeffer is the last of the modern theologians, but not the first of the postmodern theologians. He still strongly argued for rationalism in apologetics. By this, I mean Francis Schaeffer believed one had to be converted to the appropriate set of presuppositions, namely the law of non-contradiction (“A” cannot be “non-A”), first, in order to believe and experience the God of Christianity. The Bible is viewed as a propositional argument from God to His people, which can only be accepted by the correct presuppositional vantage point. Francis Schaeffer also was skeptical of the increase of Platonism in culture (identified with mysticism) and leaned more towards an Aristotelian view of reality (identified with rationalism). These ideas mark a clear modern thought pattern.

Despite his modern view, Schaeffer offers us many insights in ministering to any culture of believers. And a thorough study of his work would benefit any believer greatly.

How I met Francis Schaeffer 
When I first came to college, I experienced a massive faith crisis. Raised in a consumer friendly, experience crazed society, I doubted the reasonableness of the Christian system. My understanding of God did not find a home in rationality. I could not give my life to a system, just because someone told me if I say a prayer– God would come down from distant Heaven and have coffee with me (metaphorically speaking, of course). I needed answers. I read Josh McDowell’s More than a Carpenter and C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity . Both of these inspirational works satisfied my craving for common sense soundness. until I became a student of philosophy. Anyone who has studied philosophy knows that “common sense soundness” does not go very far. I needed more. I needed philosophical answers. Sorry, but Lewis and McDowell just do not cut it against thinkers like Nietzsche, Sartre, Schopenhauer, Russell, Husserl, and Heidegger. These philosophic heavy weights are playing different games and speaking a different language. Francis Schaeffer, however, knew the language; and I am convinced he could stand toe to toe with any of them.

My campus minister Keith Boone introduced me to the work of Francis Schaeffer. He encouraged me to read the trilogy: The God Who Is There , Escape From Reason , and He Is There And He Is Not Silent . These three books outline the basic premise of any arguments he would develop in later books. Schaeffer was culturally, philosophically, and scripturally informed. He wrote with compassion and fire. I often stayed up late in the night reading and pondering his ideas. Each sentence blowing my mind and causing me to re-evaluate my own hidden agendas for Christianity. He moved me to understand a deeper and truer Gospel than what I had known before.

And in my own postmodern superficiality, I will admit, I also liked him because he just looked cool. Francis Schaeffer has the image of an eccentric academic freak. I really resonated with that– call it my personal image goal. Yes, he is the reason why I grew a goatee. (I can hear my friends, who know me too well, laughing out loud.)

All of his writings exist to prove a basic, and yet radical point, God is really there. He’s not just a concept or an idea. He really exists. But not only that, God is speaking to us. Schaeffer believed humankind was created with dignity and is still formed in the “image of God.” We all have worth and value which is innate with our standing in the universe. We are not just specks of dust on a larger speck of dust circling the sun. From this point, true restoration can take place in the souls of men and women.

Francis Schaeffer wrote to provide intellectual healing to a world in transition. He realized the old models were fading. There are some points we should observe in communicating Schaeffer’s timeless message to postmodernism.


Francis Schaeffer was concerned with being relevant to his time
Francis Schaeffer wrote because he saw the ideas of logical positivism and existentialism being introduced into popular culture in dangerous ways, displacing God from our understanding. Schaeffer noted in his article “How I Have Come to Write My Books” (Inter-Varsity Press 1974): “In my reading of philosophy, I saw that there were innumerable problems that nobody was giving answers for. the Bible, it struck me, dealt with man’s problems in a sweeping, all-encompassing thrust.” Schaeffer knew these philosophic problems affect the everyday life of believers. These ideas have a flow of influence from philosophy to art to music to general culture. Schaeffer wrote to get ahead of the ideas to positively affect general culture, replacing deceptive philosophy with the answers of scripture.

Schaeffer’s goal was not to become “modern,” but to minister to the modern person. Likewise, in an ever-changing society, we should be careful not to adopt postmodernism, but instead, give eternal hope to those people lost in the disparity of postmodernism. “Relevancy” has become a popular sell-word for churches nowadays. But this word has to imply more than just using movie clips in a sermon. Relevancy strikes to the heart of how we think and live.

Francis Schaeffer addresses the issue of a shift in epistemology
Epistemology may not be everyone’s favorite topic of discussion, but for Schaeffer this issue was of utmost importance. He recognized if our thinking is off, everything else will surely to follow. Schaeffer observed a shift in epistemology which involved a false belief that God is simply a concept or theory. We take an unfortunate existential “leap of faith” which is not rooted in the direct experience of God. We do not see God working in daily life. Schaeffer cited Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) as the initial cause of this trend. According to Schaeffer, Aquinas separated nature from grace in theology. The spiritual world and the earthly world became separated. The earthly world became what was “real” and the spiritual world was the “hypothetical.”

Today we still encounter in the consequences of this shift, especially when referring to a secular versus spiritual society. We create a Christian sub-world that was never meant to exist. Instead of being in the world, we live the hypothetical faith world. We fail to realize that everything is spiritual. Everything is bathed in God’s touch and presence. “For you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” (Revelation 4:11, quoted at the beginning of Schaeffer’s The God Who Is There .) Schaeffer hoped to give his readers understanding of a world in direct connection with a God who is really present.

Art and culture mattered to Francis Schaeffer
Francis Schaeffer was deeply concerned with how art impacted our thoughts and actions. In the trilogy, Schaeffer displays a thorough knowledge of art history. He shows how art has developed along a theme of separation between nature and grace. Schaeffer also is well versed on the contemporary arts, musicians, and filmmakers. He carefully analyzes these influences. Interesting footnote: He was quite possibly the first theologian to intelligently evaluate the punk revolution in Europe .

Schaeffer wrote passionately about the Christian’s ability to worship God through art. In the day of the great evangelical preachers, when such a strong emphasis was placed on teaching, Schaeffer ideas of art as worship reflected the wisdom of the ancients and were simultaneously revolutionary. Schaeffer’s book How Should We Then Live gives a good overview on his ideas about art.

Among postmodern pilgrims everywhere, the subject of art and worship is a very popular topic of conversation. Francis Schaeffer introduces this idea to a new generation of disciples, an invaluable resource to any community interested in created art with meaning and transcendence.

L’Abri: An example of the “community apologetic”
When Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith moved to Switzerland , they decided to open their house to any believers traveling through. These travelers could come for healing, conversation, instruction, and service. They re-named their home L’Abri , French for “the Shelter.” People from all over came to be part of this transit community. Remember my campus minister Keith Boone?

L’Abri expanded to a number of branches throughout the world. Even today, L’Abri receives people. His wife Edith wrote the book L’Abri telling of this community’s development.

Francis Schaeffer did not just live as a hermit scholar. He worked daily with people, and frequently strangers, sharing with them God’s message of peace at L’Abri. He believed strongly that community is the place where God speaks. Not only that, but community is its own apologetic for the Gospel. People can live together in meaningful relationships, sharing, working together with the Spirit’s power.

What is community? How do we “get” it? Schaeffer’s L’Abri was a Christian response to the hippy communes that sought desperately to have community and meaning. L’Abri can also illustrate our own need to re-define church and the gathering of the saints. L’Abri was not just a Sunday morning institution. We need to carefully evaluate the condition of our own local churches from a programmatic institution to a community of believers.

The lasting impact of “The Last Great Modern Theologian”
In my opinion, Francis Schaeffer is the last of the relevant and the truly great modern theologians. He stood at the melting point between modern and postmodern. While he never addresses postmodernism, Schaeffer’s influence will be long lasting in the postmodern culture we minister in. A culture that looks longingly for heroes and role models, beyond the celebrities and pop stars.

This past summer I worked at a camp in Glen Rose, Texas . On the first day, I met a boy named “Schaeffer.” He wore a Cowboys cap to cover his blonde matted hair and his big grin revealed two missing teeth. As he was making his bunk, trying to smooth out the sheets while standing on the bed (a difficult task no doubt), I commented to his mother about Francis Schaeffer. She smiled and said, “I know about Francis, we named our son after him. Francis really influenced my husband and me, when we first met.” Imagine that? Schaeffer was my favorite camper for that week. Maybe it was his grin, maybe there is just something in a name.

For more information on Francis Schaeffer:
I believe The Shelter www.rationalpi/theshelter.com is the best Schaeffer site on the Internet. The site contains weekly quotes, a list of books and articles, biography, photos, and links. The Shelter also has an email list, which I am a part of. If you sign up, every week they send a Schaeffer quote, plus some links on web from all areas of interest.

          DAVID HOPKINS is program director at the Wesleyan Campus Ministry in the small college town of Commerce , Texas . He currently is part of the Axxess Community at Pantego Bible Churc

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

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January 15, 2014 – 12:00 am Categories: Francis Schaeffer, President Obama, Prolife | Post a comment

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 4 ( Schaeffer and H.R. Rookmaaker worked together well!!! (Feature on artist Mike Kelley Part B )

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 4 ( Schaeffer and H.R. Rookmaaker worked together well!!! (Feature on artist Mike Kelley Part B )

프란시스 쉐퍼 – 그러면 우리는 어떻게 살 것인가 introduction (Episode 1)

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

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

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

10 Worldview and Truth

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

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

A Christian Manifesto Francis Schaeffer

[ARTS 410] William Dyrness: The Relationship of Art and Theology

Published on Sep 14, 2013

Guest lecture in ARTS 410: Arts and the Bible.

At the 30:00 mark William Dyrness talks about studying under Rookmaaker.

 

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Hans Rookmaaker in discussion with students pictured above.

Francis Schaeffer pictured below:

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Schaeffer and Rookmaaker complemented each other in an extraordinary way that affected the actual lives of many people for much good! David Bruce Hegeman noted in

Comment Magazine in the article,

Clashing Cultures: Christian Art vs. Secular Art, 

The Importance of Hans Rookmaaker,

In Art and in the Life of Francis Schaeffer, 

November 2004 – V. 22 I. 9:

This meeting between Francis Schaeffer and Hans Rookmaaker was to have a profound impact on the history of the modern evangelical church… Schaeffer probed the younger art history student on the meaning of modern art, and the two of them pondered together the impact that post-Christian ideas and values had on European art and culture. Schaeffer already had an interest in culture and had begun visiting art museums after arriving in Europe. Rookmaaker might have been the first Christian Schaeffer had ever met who had seriously studied contemporary art and had the philosophical tools (via Dooyeweerd and his reading of philosophy in prison camp) to analyze and critique the arts from a biblical perspective. It turned out they both had a strong common interest in the relationship between art and Christianity and immediately became close, lifelong friends. Later, after Schaeffer had established L’Abri in the village of Humoz, Switzerland in 1955, Rookmaaker was a frequent visitor and lecturer to the Swiss community. Hans and Anky opened a Dutch branch of L’Abri in 1971.

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Laurel Gasque did a great job going into more detail about their relationship in the following article:

Hans Rookmaaker and Francis Schaeffer

Laurel Gasque is the Associate Editor of ArtWay and the author of Art and the Christian Mind: The Life and Work of H.R. Rookmaaker. She is also sessional lecturer in theology and the arts at Regent College, Vancouver, B.C. and adjunct professor of art history at Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C., Canada.

A European Continental reading of Rookmaaker is needed.So much of what has been written about him offers an American perspective on a person whose thinking was formed outside of American culture, even to some degree outside of Western culture since Rookmaaker’s formative years were spent in the Dutch East Indies.

This, together with a tendency to associate Rookmaaker with theological and philosophical thinkers, has masked his unique voice as an art critic and art historian informed by a Christian perspective.  Co-opting him to a specific theological perspective is not helpful for understanding his thinking, the dialogue between art and faith or the wider world of art today.  Rookmaaker needs to be seen in his own right.  In his time he was not separated from the world of the art that he talked about as are most of those who comment on him today.

The Calvinist thinkers he is attached to, such as Francis Schaeffer and Calvin Seerveld, had a different background.  Schaeffer was very much an American, though he lived the better part of his adult life in Europe.  Seerveld, though American, has lived in Canada for decades.  Providentially, Seerveld’s immigrant family gave him the gift of speaking Dutch and becoming multilingual. Schaeffer was monolingual, despite his living in Switzerland.  Rookmaaker was multilingual, something that has escaped his Anglophone critics, who have barely read his Complete Works translated into English for their convenience.

Schaeffer and Rookmaaker met in 1948 through Rookmaaker’s fiancée, Anky Huitker, who arranged a meeting for Hans with Schaeffer when he was in Amsterdam to help convene a meeting of the International Council of Christian Churches (ICCC), a Fundamentalist response to the establishment of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

Rookmaaker was ten years younger than Schaeffer, still a graduate student.  There is no doubt that his meeting with Schaeffer had an enormous impact on both of their lives. Their first encounter started with what was to be a half-hour long conversation that was supposed to help Rookmaaker learn about black music in America. (It is doubtful that Schaeffer knew a thing about this subject!)  Their discussion ended at 4:00 AM! To his credit, it seems that Schaeffer listened to this young man and thus received his first lesson in the history of jazz, blues and spirituals, but also in modern art as well.

There was definitely a meeting of minds as the two men entered into what was to become a life-long friendship, but this was not a systematic, symbiotic way of thinking that led to a joint intellectual project between the two men.  Rookmaaker, in fact, became Schaeffer’s tutor in art.  Again, to Schaeffer’s credit, he listened as best he could.  But he was already formed by both the American Christian Fundamentalism of Carl McIntire as well as the philosophical apologetics of Cornelius van Til, his teacher at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

There is no doubt that Rookmaaker appreciated having an older friend who opened him to a wider world of English speakers.  But he always remained his own man. The bond between Rookmaaker and Schaeffer was deep.  However, they were quite different from each other.  Heartfelt friendship does not necessarily mean total agreement, even when deep values and beliefs are held in common.  We see this, for example, in the profound friendship of C.S. Lewis and Owen Barfield.

Schaeffer was an American evangelist with a Fundamentalist formation who was also an intellectual. Rookmaaker was a European intellectual with a Reformed formation who was in his own way an evangelist. Artists and art students came to faith after many of his lectures.  Rookmaaker was certainly not trying to recruit converts, but his presentations were convincing.  Schaeffer and Rookmaaker complemented each other in an extraordinary way that affected the actual lives of many people for much good.

Intellectually, they must be considered independently from each other in order to appreciate and to appropriate the direction in which Rookmaaker was heading. He was not the rationalist that Schaeffer tended to be.  Before Rookmaaker died in 1977 he had some Schaefferites worried about the direction of his thinking.  He was grounded and thinking on a number of fronts.  He was not afraid to go where many now associated with post-modernism are in their critique of modernity.  He equally espoused art creation by Christians in the contemporary world without any kind of control or constrictions on style.  To that end he mentored artists and cared lovingly for his art historian students, even when they did not understand clearly his formation, direction and mission.

The personal bond of friendship between Schaeffer and Rookmaaker must remain intact, but the intellectual trajectories of the two men must be separated in order to have a clearer idea of who Rookmaaker really was and what he actually thought and achieved.

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Francis Schaeffer has written extensively on art and culture spanning the last 2000 years and here are some posts I have done on this subject before : Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 “The Age of Fragmentation”, episode 7 “The Age of Non-Reason” , episode 6 “The Scientific Age” , episode 5 “The Revolutionary Age” ,  episode 4 “The Reformation”,  episode 3 “The Renaissance”, episode 2 “The Middle Ages,”, and  episode 1 “The Roman Age,” . My favorite episodes are number 7 and 8 since they deal with modern art and culture primarily.(Joe Carter rightly noted, “Schaeffer—who always claimed to be an evangelist and not a philosopher—was often criticized for the way his work oversimplified intellectual history and philosophy.” To those critics I say take a chill pill because Schaeffer was introducing millions into the fields of art and culture!!!! !!! More people need to read his works and blog about them because they show how people’s worldviews affect their lives! Francis Schaeffer’s works  are the basis for a large portion of my blog posts and they have stood the test of time. In fact, many people would say that many of the things he wrote in the 1960’s  were right on  in the sense he saw where our western society was heading and he knew that abortion, infanticide and youth enthansia were  moral boundaries we would be crossing  in the coming decades because of humanism and these are the discussions we are having now!)

There is evidence that points to the fact that the Bible is historically true as Schaeffer pointed out in episode 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? There is a basis then for faith in Christ alone for our eternal hope. This link shows how to do that.

Francis and Edith Schaeffer

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I am featuring the late Mike Kelley today. Kelley’s art made me think of these quotes from Schaeffer:

Many modern artists, it seems to me, have forgotten the value that art has in itself. Much modern art is far too intellectual to be great art. Many modern artists seem not to see the distinction between man and non-man, and it is a part of the lostness of modern man that they no longer see value in the work of art as a work of art. ”

(Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible)

________

When speaking of John Cage and Marcel Duchamp (Duchamp was a big influence on Kelley):

“Art as anti-art when it is mere intellectual statement, divorced from reality of who people are and the fullness of what the universe is.”

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Francis Schaeffer in his book HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? noted:

“But even people who believe they are machines cannot live like machines, and thus they must ‘leap upstairs’ against their reason and try to find something which gives meaning to life, even though to
do so they have to deny their reason.” [page3 182]

This quote from Schaeffer also made me wish that Mike Kelley would have had the opportunity to see this video by Dr. Craig because it talks about those like Kelley who think the world is the result of time plus matter plus chance and how life is just absurd without God in the picture.

The Absurdity of Life Without God (William Lane Craig)

Uploaded on Sep 11, 2011

http://reasonablefaith.org – Is life any good or meaningful without the existence of God? Can man have any real value if atheism is true? Does God and Christianity serve as objective meaning to life? Dr. William Lane Craig answers some of these question in this important lecture.

Article: http://www.bethinking.org/suffering/t…

Interview: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list…

Atheism and the meaning of life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ti133…

Nihilism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cWLvp…

Is moral relativism livable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd5O0c…

Can science determine morality and ethics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mU5U…

Failure: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list…

We welcome your comments in the Reasonable Faith forums:
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/forums/

Follow Reasonable Faith On Twitter: http://twitter.com/rfupdates

Add Reasonable Faith On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/reasonablefai…

______________________________________

From Architectural Digest:

Ahh...Youth!, Mike Kelley

Ahh…Youth!, Mike Kelley, 1991.
Image courtesy of Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts

Mike Kelley (1954-2012) – A Tribute

Published on Nov 18, 2013

Called one of the most significant artists of his generation, Stamps graduate Mike Kelley was an iconoclast who introduced a distinctive Detroit sensibility to the international art world with his references to everything from Soupy Sales to the Vernor’s gnome. He was a founding member of Destroy All Monsters, a collective formed in Ann Arbor in 1974 with artists Jim Shaw, Niagara and Cary Loren. A major retrospective of his work opened at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam in 2012, at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris in 2013 and will travel to MOMA PS1, NY in October 2013 and MOCA Los Angeles in 2014. Before his death in 2012, Kelley had begun work based on a life-sized replica of his childhood suburban Detroit home. The new ‘homestead’ has been relocated to the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD).

Cary Loren, founding member of Destroy All Monsters, and Mary Clare Stevens, the Executive Director of the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts and longtime Kelley friend and studio manager will speak. Their presentations will be followed by the screening of two videos documenting the homestead’s journey from downtown Detroit to Kelley’s former home in Westland, and back again.
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Mike Kelley, R.I.P.

Posted by 

Eric and I were very saddened today to learn of the death of Mike Kelley. Formerly of the band Destroy All Monsters (in the earlier, more experimental phases), Mike tried his hand in many disciplines – visual art, performance, experimental music. At the time of this writing, it’s been noted that his death (at age 57) seems to have been a suicide, Faux News suggests due to a breakup, but this doesn’t seem to be backed by any other sources I’ve seen among art blogs or sites, or more likely, people in the art world who knew him and had been in communication with him more recently.

It seems fortuitous that for Winter Solstice I’d given Eric the book collecting art from the early Destroy All Monsters zines. At the time I felt that way because there were only a limited number of these books printed and I’d managed to snag the last copy at St. Mark’s Bookstore. This adds an extra specialness to it. 

This is a page scanned from from said book, many of these collages were collaborative with the members of Destroy All Monsters, so it’s hard to say which elements are specifically Mike.

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AN ARTIST WITH ATTITUDE

Published on Dec 26, 2012

INTRO

The deceased LA-based artist, Mike Kelley, is one of the leading voices in contemporary culture in the US and Europe.

It’s been almost a year that Mike Kelley passed away, but those works left behind hasn’t been forgotten, the public get inspired from this artist with attitude.

Recently, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam presented its first major international traveling exhibition.

The museum features Mike Kelley, an artist who suddenly died in the beginning of 2012 and who is internationally regarded as one of the most influential modern artists.

SOUNDBITE(Dutch): CLAIRE VAN DE ELS, Curator
“The Mike Kelley exhibition shows around 200 his works. When you enter the exhibition the first thing you will see is a couple of banners that he has made, which is work from the late eighties. Then you enter a big space where a plaid is spread out on the floor. This work is called Lumpenprole. The next hall is called Half a man. That is a famous installation he has made between 1987 and 1992 in where we can see different sorts of textiles, under which his iconic tapestry that is made from teddy bears and in front of the tapestry you can see a table with candles. In this work Kelley has tried to connect the innocence of the bears with sin.” 

Mike Kelley’ s sudden death in the beginning of 2012, came as a shock for many of artists and his friends.

SOUNDBITE(English): ANN GOLDSTEIN, Art Director
“This exhibition was initiated with Mike’ s involvement. It has been in progress for many years. And it has been his sudden and tragic death in the beginning of this year was absolutely devastating for everyone and his absence is very profound, but the work speaks loud and clear. And as much as we miss him, this is the fact we are dealing with. The exhibition suddenly became a retrospective in all senses of the word and his presence is very much felt for those who knew and loved him. And for those who encounter his work for the first time I think they have a great opportunity for a baseline experience into the remarkably world, the remarkable cosmology that he has built with his work.”

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Mike Kelley pictured below:

Mike Kelley: “Day Is Done” | Art21 “Exclusive”

Uploaded on Apr 30, 2010

Episode #104: Mike Kelley reveals how photographs from yearbooks and newspapers in Detroit served as the inspiration behind the performative project “Day Is Done,” shown installed at Gagosian Gallery.

Learn more about Mike Kelley: http://www.art21.org/artists/mike-kelley

VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Nancy Schreiber & Joel Shapiro. Sound: Tom Bergin & Stacy Hruby. Editor: Paulo Padilha. Artwork Courtesy: Mike Kelley. Special Thanks: Gagosian Gallery, New York.

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The artist Max Estenger wrote on his blog:

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Loose Ends: Mike Kelley & Trulee Grace Hall

The young woman who reportedly caused Mike Kelley much anguish in his final months posted this on Facebook today. Takeaway line: “I had to leave him in order to protect myself, I hope you all will try to understand and forgive me.”   

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Mike Kelley (1954-2012) and Thomas Kinkade (1958-2012) Have Gone Home

Kelley was an introvert saw repression as the enemy of sanity. He sought out and even embraced life’s darkness; a Poet Apostate who criticized “normative” values, systems of authority and consumer culture. As critics have pointed out his early use of stuffed animals was intended to “drive a wedge between sentimentality and childhood.” His savage critiques appealed to the jaded appetites of some of the art world’s leading collectors.

Kinkade and Kelley were the yin and yang of American art, one favored by conservative “red” America, the other by “blue.” Kinkade’s work was sold in shopping malls, at the Disney Store and on eBay, while Kelley’s was shown in elite galleries and contemporary art museums.

Yet, despite their differences, they both had a deep interest in the same subject matter: the revisiting of their childhood traumas as portrayed in the image of “home.”

Before his death by suicide in early February, Kelley was working on “Mobile Homeland,” an installation that was intended to recreate his childhood home in Detroit. In his final interview Kelly told Tulsa Kinney of Artillery Magazine that the subject was …” almost too fraught with psychology and dysfunction…things that could easily feel like an emotional burden.”

Home, as seen through a child’s eyes, was a subject that Kelley had dealt with before. In his 1995 installation “We Communicate” Kelly wrote texts for a set of children’s paintings that commented on the psychological underpinnings of each image. One of his commentaries says quite a bit about what he thought a painted image of a house could communicate:

“The house is a crudely scrawled heap surrounded by dark messy slashes of color. The surrounding shading produces an atmosphere that screams with anxiety. No German Expressionist has depicted the black torture of the soul better. Although Elaine is obviously an unhappy child, she is, at least, able to express this state of mind openly and need not hide behind the mask of socialization. She need not pretend to be a ‘good girl.’ The adult world of rules and order, symbolized by the house, is sinking back into an infantile fecal mound that Elaine has the capacity to control.”

Clearly, what Kelley had to say about the child’s way of coping — she was in control because she didn’t repress or pretend — is also an manifesto of his own social and personal ethos. “His subversive critique,” wrote George Melrod after Kelley’s death, “was not just aimed outward toward society at large, but seemingly inward at himself.”

By contrast, one of Kinkade’s signature images, “The Christmas Cottage,” is a sentimentalized image of the artist’s childhood home; Kinkade reportedly launched his artistic career to save it after he learned that his mother could no longer afford the mortgage. It has been stated that one in twenty homes in America is decorated with some kind of Kinkade print. You have to wonder: how many homes had “The Christmas Cottage” hanging over the fireplace when Countrywide posted the foreclosure papers on the front door?

The cottage, which glows as if it had swallowed the Star of Bethlehem, exudes a luminescent fairy tale vibe that Kinkade used as his shield against his life’s disappointments. By painting fairy tales, Kinkade was attempting to achieve what Bruno Bettelheim posited was a “…happy outcome, which the child cannot imagine on his own.” Kelley would have called Kinkade’s approach “denial.” Indeed, Kinkade expertly sugar-coated the subject matter of every one of his mass-reproduced images. No wonder one critic called them “visual Prozac.”

Kinkade reportedly died of “natural causes,” which I assume is a sugar-coating of the actual factors. The artist’s public outbursts — he once reportedly urinated on a Winnie the Pooh figure at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim while saying “This one’s for you, Walt.” — and his 2010 arrest for drunk driving suggest that the man’s demons were doing everything they could to burst out.

Kelley, by taking his own life, was characteristically honest. His suicide was his admission of unhappiness, a problem that he had discussed openly in his key works. At the time of his death Kelley was reportedly depressed after a breakup with his girlfriend.

Mike Kelley died “critically acclaimed.” Thomas Kinkade died “popular.” As Leonard Koscianski pointed out on Facebook, they both had their constituencies. They both had considerable public and financial success.

“Mike Kelley,” comments Leonard Koscianski, “made very high priced works that ridiculed middle class sentiment. His works were so expensive that they could never be owned by the middle class he disparaged.” His hanging mixed-media installation, “Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites,” sold at auction for just over $2.7 million dollars in 2006. Kelley, who had once addressed cultural consumerism with a fetishistic phallic candle display called “The Wages of Sin” was represented, at the time of his death, by the world’s most powerful contemporary art dealer, Larry Gagosian.

Kinkade’s art and the product line that grew from it was so successful that his art company was publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and at one point had a market capitalization of $350 million (the total value of the stock) based on annual sales of $250 million. Kinkade, who described the art world as “a very small pond…a very inbred pond,” left behind a net worth that is in dispute. One source says “$70 million” another says the artist, who had faced lawsuits by the owners of Kinkade gallery franchises, died “piss-poor.” At the time of his death, Kinkade and his wife Nanette had been separated for more than a year.

Kelley’s bracingly strange and searchingly intellectual art appealed to America’s 1%. Kincade’s hyper-sincerity, and his celebration of Christ, baseball, and glowing cottages made him the favorite artist of America’s 99%. They were two American artists who, in their striking divergence, tell the story of a nation whose center seems ready to tear apart. Stress makes people look for extreme solutions, both in life and art.

Ultimately, both men seem to have suffered in catering to the almost schizophrenically divided tastes of American society. In public they both maintained powerful identities — a bad boy and a good boy — while in private each one got a bit lost trying to find his way “home” to private peace and reconciliation with his childhood experiences. It might be said — in psychoanalytic terms — that both Kelley and Kinkade ultimately failed to sublimate their impulses and idealizations into workable connections with the world.

Let’s hope, for Kinkade’s sake, that he is safely at home in Heaven. It would have to be a light-filled, cotton candy heaven where a compassionate Christ is present. In Kelley’s case, it is tougher to speculate on where his final home might be and who might comfort him. When Tulsa Kinney asked Kelley, during his final interview, if he ever believed in Heaven and Hell, he responded plainly:

‘No. I never believed in anything.’

________________________

To those who have never believed in anything consider placing your faith alone in the Christ who came to earth and lived a perfect life then died for your sins.

Our views below concerning how to go to heaven  (this material is from Campus Crusade for Christ).

Just as there are physical laws that govern

the physical universe, so are there spiritual laws
that govern your relationship with God.

Law 1

God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.

God’s Love
“God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever
believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NIV).

God’s Plan
[Christ speaking] “I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly”
[that it might be full and meaningful] (John 10:10).

Why is it that most people are not experiencing that abundant life?

Because…

Law 2

Man is sinful and separated from God.
Therefore, he cannot know and experience
God’s love and plan for his life.

Man is Sinful
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Man was created to have fellowship with God; but, because of his own stubborn
self-will, he chose to go his own independent way and fellowship with God was broken.
This self-will, characterized by an attitude of active rebellion or passive indifference,
is an evidence of what the Bible calls sin.

Man Is Separated
“The wages of sin is death” [spiritual separation from God] (Romans 6:23).

Separation This diagram illustrates that God isholy and man is sinful. A great gulf separates the two. The arrows illustrate that man is continually trying to reach God and the abundant life through his own efforts, such as a good life, philosophy, or religion
-but he inevitably fails.The third law explains the only way to bridge this gulf…

Law 3

Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin.
Through Him you can know and experience
God’s love and plan for your life.

He Died In Our Place
“God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

He Rose from the Dead
“Christ died for our sins… He was buried… He was raised on the third day,
according to the Scriptures… He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve.
After that He appeared to more than five hundred…” (1 Corinthians 15:3-6).

He Is the Only Way to God
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to
the Father but through Me’” (John 14:6).

Bridge The Gulf This diagram illustrates that God has bridged the gulf that separates us from Him by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross in our place to pay the penalty for our sins.It is not enough just to know these three laws…

Law 4

We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord;
then we can know and experience God’s love and plan for our lives.

We Must Receive Christ
“As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children
of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12).

We Receive Christ Through Faith
“By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God; not as result of works that no one should boast” (Ephesians 2:8,9).

When We Receive Christ, We Experience a New Birth
(Read John 3:1-8.)

We Receive Christ Through Personal Invitation
[Christ speaking] “Behold, I stand at the door and knock;
if any one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him” (Revelation 3:20).

Receiving Christ involves turning to God from self (repentance) and trusting
Christ to come into our lives to forgive our sins and to make us what He wants us to be.
Just to agree intellectually that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died on the cross
for our sins is not enough. Nor is it enough to have an emotional experience.
We receive Jesus Christ by faith, as an act of the will.

These two circles represent two kinds of lives:

Circles

Self-Directed Life
S-Self is on the throne
wpe463.jpg (790 bytes)-Christ is outside the life
wpe464.jpg (719 bytes)-Interests are directed by self, often
resulting in discord and frustration		 Christ-Directed Life
wpe463.jpg (790 bytes)-Christ is in the life and on the throne
S-Self is yielding to Christ,
resulting in harmony with God’s plan
wpe464.jpg (719 bytes)-Interests are directed by Christ,
resulting in harmony with God’s plan

Which circle best represents your life?
Which circle would you like to have represent your life?

The following explains how you can receive Christ:

You Can Receive Christ Right Now by Faith Through Prayer
(Prayer is talking with God)

God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude
of your heart. The following is a suggested prayer:

Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life.
Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be.

Does this prayer express the desire of your heart? If it does, I invite you to pray this
prayer right now, and Christ will come into your life, as He promised.

Now that you have received Christ

On this web site:
Copyrighted 2007 by Bright Media Foundation and Campus Crusade for Christ.
All rights reserved. Used by permission.

 

_________________________________________________________________

Francis Schaeffer with his son Franky pictured below. Francis and Edith (who passed away in 2013) opened L’ Abri in 1955 in Switzerland.

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Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” (Schaeffer Sundays)

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January 14, 2014 – 8:52 am Categories: Francis Schaeffer | Post a comment

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

More waste out of Washington.

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More waste out of Washington.

JANUARY 10, 2014 9:22AM

Washington Big Spenders: Wasteful as Essential

If you live anywhere but Washington, D.C., you probably believe that the federal government spends too much.  Today the national debt is more than $17 trillion.  CBO figured that existing budget plans would add between $6.3 trillion and $8.8 trillion in red ink over the coming decade.

Social Security and Medicare alone account for more than $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities, promised benefits for which no revenues are set.  Counting a multitude of other debts and obligations, American taxpayers are on the hook for more than $220 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

As I point out in my new Forbes online column:

However, denizens of Washington see things very differently.  Policymakers recently approved a bipartisan budget that increased discretionary spending, theoretically the easiest outlay to control, over the next two years.  Legislators ignored so-called entitlement outlays, which threaten to consume the entire federal budget.

It really doesn’t matter which party is in charge in Washington.  Most Republicans have little desire to cut federal outlays.  One man’s waste is another man’s vote-winning special interest hand-out.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Ok.) has issued a second “Wastebook” which contains 100 of the dumbest uses of taxpayers’ money.  Explained the Senator:  “While the president and his cabinet issued dire warnings about the cataclysmic impacts of sequestration, taxpayers were not alerted to all of the waste being spared from the budget axe.”

For instance, the National Endowment for the Humanities devoted almost $1 million to the Popular Romance Project to “explore the fascinating, often contradictory origins and influences of popular romance as told in novels, films, comics, advice books, songs, and internet fan fiction, taking a global perspective—while looking back across time as far as the ancient Greeks.”  The National Science Foundation spent a quarter of a million dollars to study “attitudes toward the Senate filibuster among the American public.”

The Army spent nearly $300 million on a blimp for surveillance in Afghanistan—only to drop the project after its inaugural U.S. flight, selling the airship back to its maker for $301,000.  The International Trade Association devoted nearly $300,000 to send Indi Rock music executives on a tour to Brazil.

The National Institutes for Health dropped $335,525 on a study which determined that “marriages that were the happiest were the ones in which the wives were able to calm down quickly during marital conflict.”  The $1.9 million Senate Office of Education and Training provides classes for staffers on such subjects as sleeping well and making small talk.  The National Endowment for the Arts used $10,000 to underwrite the PowerUP Project, which featured choreographed (utility) pole dancing.

Housing and Urban Development used $1.2 million to create an apartment designed for the deaf in Tempe, Arizona, only to then decide that three-quarters of the residences should be occupied by people with normal hearing.  The Agriculture Department gave an Oklahoma winery $200,000 to purchase new equipment.

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The Commerce Department provided Las Vegas with $800,000 to think about economic development.  The U.S. Marshals Service dropped nearly $800,000 on promotional “swag,” including Christmas ornaments.

Sen. Coburn’s 100 programs cost about $30 billion total.  While that’s a lot of money for most anyone except Bill Gates, it is small change for the federal government, less than 1/700thUncle Sam’s current unfunded liabilities.  Even eliminating the many wasteful projects that litter the federal bureaucracy would not balance the budget.

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Truth Tuesday:14 things you may not know about Francis Schaeffer

14 things you may not know about Francis Schaeffer

The Scientific Age

Uploaded by  on Oct 3, 2011

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Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason

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

_______________________

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

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

Francis Schaeffer

Francis Schaeffer – An Authentic Life

Colin Duriez (2008), Inter-Varsity Press, Nottingham
240 pages; £12.99.  ISBN: 978-1-84474-310-0

This book is surprisingly (because the author was once a commissioning editor for IVP) not well written.  There are too many repetitions, wittering interviews and cul-de-sac statements – indeed, it reminded me of Francis Schaeffer’s own writing!  Yet, despite these shortcomings, the book is a fascinating account of the life and times of the Rev Dr Francis August Schaeffer IV (born 30 January 1912, died 15 May 1984), first and foremost a Gospel minister, but also the author of twenty-plus books, a film maker and famously, the founder of L’Abri in Switzerland. 

I have read about ten of Schaeffer’s books (contrary to most reviewers, I think his Genesis in Space and Time is his best), seen (and presented to audiences) both of his film series and heard him speak in England and the USA.  While I would not consider myself a Schaefferite – for instance, I’ve visited, but never studied at any of the various L’Abri locations – he has influenced my thinking more than perhaps any other modern man.  His daring analyses of art, politics, music and philosophy; his dual insistence upon the need of Christ as Saviour plus the Lordship of Christ in the whole of life; his unforgettable phrases (‘true truth’, ‘existential methodology’, ‘personal peace and affluence’, among many others); his confident apologetic rooted in the Bible as well as the imminent culture, gave me a deep and enduring assurance of the truth of orthodox, evangelical Christianity during my student days and ever since.

The man with the hangdog expression, Swiss breeches and the high-pitched voice was always an easy target for his detractors.  For me, these aspects of (minor) personal unattractiveness merely served to heighten the significance of his message.  Here was no slick operator with well-honed orations.  Here was a Bible-believing man who had thought long and hard and who had laboured, often in adverse circumstances, for the benefit of his less gifted/lazier readers/hearers.  He gave a generation or two the wherewithal to stand foursquare for biblical truth and not be ashamed of their Saviour.  Where are such men today?

Duriez’s book is brimful of Schaefferite detail as well as the broad brushstrokes of his life story, which was both considerably heroic and boldly pioneering.  But you can read all of that for yourself.  Here are fourteen fascinating facets of Francis Schaeffer’s life, in approximate chronological order, which I, and maybe you, knew nothing about:

1]  After reading the Bible as a teenager, he thought he was alone in discovering its answers to his deepest nagging questions.  But on 19 August 1930, he ‘stumbled’ upon a tent meeting and realised that the preacher also knew those same answers.  He wrote in his diary that night, ‘… have decided to give my whole life to Christ unconditionally.’

2]  He suffered from severe dyslexia – so the fashion designer became Mary Quaint and the black comedy film was known as Dr Strangeglove. 

3]  He had struggled through most of his schooldays and in 1931 he started pre-ministerial studies at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia.  Early on the morning of his departure from the family home, his father confronted him at the front door, ‘I don’t want a son who is a minister, and – I don’t want you to go.’  ‘Pop, give me a few moments to go down in the cellar and pray’, was his reply.  He emerged to his silently-waiting father, ‘Dad, I’ve got to go.’  And he did.  Years later, Schaeffer senior came to share his son’s faith. 

4]  In his early years as a Christian he had been increasingly separatist, both denominationally and educationally – he left the Presbyterian Church of America for the Bible Presbyterian Church, and then Westminster Theological Seminary for Faith Theological Seminary. 

5]  He met Edith Seville (whom he married in 1935) during his first summer vacation – they were mutually intrigued and she soon encouraged him to read Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen.  After graduating in June 1935, he entered the ‘new’ Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, with its staff from the ‘dead’ Princeton Seminary, including Machen, Van Til, Kuiper, Stonehouse and Woolley. 

6]  As a married man, he never owned a car. 

7]  He had three pastorates in the USA – Grove City, Pennsylvania (three years long), Chester, on the Delaware River (less than two years) and St Louis (five years).  During those years, he and Edith developed Summer Bible Schools and a so-called Miracle Book Club in their home – these were the forerunners of their Children for Christ work, which eventually took them to Europe. 

8]  He was five feet and six inches tall. 

9]  He initially visited Europe on a three-month fact-finding tour in 1947 for two principal reasons.  First, to expand the evangelistic Children for Christ work and second, because he was deeply concerned about European theological liberalism – neo-orthodoxy – which was infecting America.  The rigours of the tour almost broke his health.  The following year, 1948, the Schaeffers (including their daughters, Priscilla, Susan and Deborah), moved to Holland and then to Switzerland. 

10]  His characteristic L’Abri-style Q & A sessions started with visiting students from nearby Swiss finishing schools and later with one of his daughter’s University of Lausanne friends. 

11]  In 1955, Schaeffer resigned from the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions and thus became a ‘freelance evangelist’.  The same year the family moved into a new home, Chalet les Mélèzes, which they renamed as L’Abri, at Huémoz, over 3000 feet above sea level. 

12]  He corresponded and eventually met, argued and still disagreed with Karl Barth at the latter’s home. 

13]  He never planned to produce any of his books, tapes or films. 

14]  When he got away from the pressure of work, he loved to relax at an espresso bar, walk a city’s streets in the early hours, eat at a little restaurant and enjoy the live music.

And the rest is, by and large, well-known history punctuated by several key events, such as the crisis of his ‘hayloft experience’ during the early 1950s, which left an indelible God-given mark on the rest of his life; the expansion of L’Abri into the L’Abri Fellowship International, which today exists in ten countries. and finally, the cancer, which was first detected in 1978 and which finally killed him six years later.  During those last years he fought death as the last enemy and he continued to write extensively, including the revision of his five-volume Complete Works, he also gave seminars, and he again turned to the great theme of the authority and inerrancy of the Bible with his last book, written with dying energy, The Great Evangelical Disaster.  For him, this issue was not merely academic or even theological, but rather it was centred on obeying the Book.  Francis Schaeffer was a man who sought to live that obedient life.  It is what Duriez calls in his book’s subtitle, An Authentic Life.

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January 14, 2014 – 12:47 am Categories: Francis Schaeffer | Post a comment

Open letter to President Obama (Part 496) (Challenge for Keynesian Anti-Sequester Hysterics: Why Did America’s Economy Boom When Reagan and Clinton Reduced the Burden of Spending?)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 496)

(Emailed to White House on 4-10-13.)

President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

___________________

You make  me long for the good ole days when the economy was expanding. Why not take a close look at the way Reagan cut taxes? We have to get the big government off of our backs.

Triggered by an appearance on Canadian TV, I asked yesterday why we should believe anti-sequester Keynesians. They want us to think that a very modest reduction in the growth of government spending will hurt the economy, yet Canada enjoyed rapid growth in the mid-1990s during a period of substantial budget restraint.

I make a similar point in this debate with Robert Reich, noting that  the burden of government spending was reduced as a share of economic output during the relatively prosperous Reagan years and Clinton years.

Dan Mitchell Debating Robert Reich on Keynesian Sequester Hysteria

Being a magnanimous person, I even told Robert he should take credit for the Clinton years since he was in the cabinet as Labor Secretary. Amazingly, he didn’t take me up on my offer.

Anyhow, these two charts show the stark contrast between the fiscal policy of Reagan and Clinton compared to Bush..

Reagan-Clinton-Bush Domestic Spending

And there’s lots of additional information comparing the fiscal performance of various presidents here, here, and here.

For more information on Reagan and Clinton, this video has the details.

Which brings us back to the original issue.

The Keynesians fear that a modest reduction in the growth of government (under the sequester, the federal government will grow $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years rather than $2.5 trillion) will somehow hurt the economy.

But government spending grew much slower under Reagan and Clinton than it has during the Bush-Obama years, yet I don’t think anybody would claim the economy in recent years has been more robust than it was in the 1980s and 1990s.

And if somebody does make that claim, just show them this remarkable chart (if they want to laugh, this Michael Ramirez cartoon makes the same point).

So perhaps the only logical conclusion to reach is that government is too big and that Keynesian economics is wrong.

I don’t think I’ll every convince Robert Reich, but hopefully the rest of the world can be persuaded by real-world evidence.

I shared a remarkable chart last year exposing Obama’s terrible record on job creation.

It showed that the economy enjoyed big employment increases during the Reagan and Clinton years, but it also revealed anemic data for the Obama years.

That’s not a surprise since Reagan was the most pro-freedom President since World War II and Clinton almost surely comes in second place.

Yes, Clinton did raise tax rates in his first year, but he put together a very strong record in subsequent years. He was particularly good about restraining the burden of government spending and overall economic freedom expanded during his reign.

He was no Reagan, to be sure, and the anti-government Congress that took power after the 1994 elections may deserve much of the credit for the good news during the Clinton years. Regardless, we had good economic performance during that period – unlike what we’ve seen during the Obama years.

Which makes this Michael Ramirez cartoon both amusing (in a tragic way) and economically accurate.

Obama v Reagan + Clinton

Since we’ve had relatively weak numbers for both jobs and growth this entire century, it would have been even better if the cartoon showed Bush and Obama both trying to raise the bar.

The real lesson is that big government is bad for jobs and growth, regardless of whether politicians have an “R” or “D” after their names.

P.S. Interestingly, now that the election is over, even the Washington Post is willing to publish charts confirming that Obama’s economic track record is miserable.

______________________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

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January 14, 2014 – 12:36 am Categories: Cato Institute, Economist Dan Mitchell, President Obama | Post a comment

Many academic studies show that extending unemployment benefits lead to more joblessness!!

_______________

Many  academic studies show that extending unemployment benefits lead to more joblessness!!

Washington is in the middle of another debate about redistributing money.

But that’s hardly newsworthy. Politics, after all, is basically a never-ending racket in which insiders buy votes and accumulate power with other people’s money.

The current debate about extending unemployment benefits is remarkable, though (at least from an economic perspective), because certain politicians want to give people money on the condition that they don’t get a job. Needless to say, that leads to a very perverse incentive structure.

There is a problem with joblessness, to be sure, but it’s misguided to think that extending unemployment benefits is the compassionate response.

Senator Paul and I wrote a column for USA Today about a better way of helping the unemployed. Looking at the empirical evidence, we argue that it’s time to unleash the private sector by reducing the burden of government.

We started with an assessment of the labor market, which has been dismal under Obama’s reign.

The nation is enduring the weakest recovery since the Great Depression, 11 million people remain unemployed, and millions more have dropped out of the labor force. For minorities, it’s even worse. The black unemployment rate is more than twice that of whites. And the weak job market means that even those who are employed are having a hard time climbing the economic ladder.

We explain that more unemployment benefits is a misguided approach.

There’s a lot of talk about helping those down on their luck, but there’s a big divide on the best approach. Our view is that America needs a growth agenda based on reducing the burden of government. The unemployed need a strong job market, not endless handouts that create dependency. …There’s an understandable desire in Washington to “do something,” and extending benefits once again certainly is the easy route for policy makers. But if we are serious about keeping workers out of the long-term unemployment trap, we must have a debate about which policies cause unemployment and which policies create jobs.

The column cites many of the academic studies showing that unemployment benefits lead to more joblessness.

I’ve made this point during television interviews, and this Michael Ramirez cartoon echoes our thinking in a more entertaining fashion.

And we definitely can’t overlook this superb Wizard-of-Id parody. It doesn’t focus specifically on unemployment benefits, but it makes a great point about labor supply incentives.

But let’s get back to the column. Our main goal is to identify the types of policies that would generate jobs and growth.

Simply stated, genuine compassion should be defined by helping people get back to work so they don’t need to be wards of the state.

And easing the burden of government is the best way to make that happen. Our column looks at some evidence – from both overseas and here at home – about the policies that are associated with better economic performance.

Big government is responsible for today’s unemployment situation. …Since President Obama was elected, we have spent $560 billion on unemployment benefits. It’s likely many more jobs would have been created had the government not diverted that money from the economy’s productive sector. …Instead of copying stagnant European nations with bigger public sectors, we should learn from countries that have achieved better performance by lowering the burden of government. Singapore and Hong Kong are examples of jurisdictions with small governments and free markets that enjoy strong and sustained growth with very low levels of joblessness. …look at Canada, which has significantly boosted its jobs market with pro-growth reforms, or Switzerland, which has cemented its traditionally strong labor markets with reforms to control the growth of government. This is not a partisan argument. Or at least it shouldn’t be. The United States enjoyed strong levels of job creation during both the Reagan and Clinton years. But in both cases, public policy was largely the same, featuring an increase in economic freedom.

Some people may wonder whether Reagan and Clinton belong in the same category.

Well, as illustrated by this chart, they both presided over periods with impressive job creation.

And they both presided over periods with generally good economic policy.

Reagan moved the country in the right direction on purpose. Clinton, by contrast, may have wanted to move the nation in the other direction, but he was unsuccessful.Indeed, the evidence is very strong that the overall burden of government fell during his tenure.

Whether by accident or design, America needs another period of free markets and shrinking government.

For further details on the recipe for good policy, here’s the video I narrated for the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, which explains the conditions that lead to strong and sustained growth.

Free Markets and Small Government Produce Prosperity

Uploaded on Feb 17, 2009

Now that the so-called stimulus has been enacted, hopefully policy makers will turn their attention to policies that actually improve economic performance. This Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation video reviews the key finding in the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World and explains that, contrary to the policies of Presidents Bush and Obama, smaller government and free markets are the way to boost economic growth. For more information: http://www.freedomandprosperity.org

__________________

P.S. I’m obviously a fan of Senator Rand Paul. Not only does he choose good people as op-ed partners, he also gave me public credit for a good Obamacare joke.

P.P.S. On a separate topic, I wrote in December 2012 that the strongest evidence for media bias is which stories get covered. A perfect example is that journalists already have given 17 times as much coverage of the Chris Christie “bridgegate” scandal as they gave to the IRS scandal over the past six months

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Through It All Andrae Crouch

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____________________

Bless His Holy Name (Bless The Lord Oh My Soul) by Andrae Crouch.wmv

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Take me back, take me back dear Lord To the place where I first believed you. Take me back, take me back dear Lord where I first believed.

I feel that I’m so far from you Lord But still I hear you calling me Those simple things that I once knew, The memories are drawing me. I must confess, Lord I’ve been blessed But yet my soul’s not satisfied. Renew my faith, restore my joy And dry my weaping eyes.

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January 13, 2014 – 1:34 am Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

“How to Cure Inflation” in Milton Friedman’s FREE TO CHOOSE Part 5 of 7 There is no Congressman, no Senator, who will come out and say, “I am in favor of inflation.” There is not a single one who will say, “I am in favor of big deficits.” They’ll all say we want to balance the budget, we want to hold down spending, we want an economical government. How do you explain the difference between performance and talk on the side of Congress?

In 1980 I read the book FREE TO CHOOSE by Milton Friedman and it really enlightened me a tremendous amount.  I suggest checking out these episodes and transcripts of Milton Friedman’s film series FREE TO CHOOSE: “The Failure of Socialism” and “What is wrong with our schools?”  and “Created Equal”  and  From Cradle to Grave, and – Power of the Market.“If we could just stop the printing presses, we would stop inflation,” Milton Friedman says in “How to Cure Inflation” from the Free To Choose series. Now as then, there is only one cause of inflation, and that is when governments print too much money. Milton explains why it is that politicians like inflation, and why wage and price controls are not solutions to the problem.

In this episode Friedman noted:
 I think that is a very important point that Dr. Emminger just made because there is not a one-to-one relationship between government deficits and what happens to the money supply at all. The pressure on the Federal Reserve comes indirectly. It comes because large government deficits, if they are financed in the general capital market, will drive up interest rates and then we have the right patents in Congress and their successors pressuring the Federal Reserve to enter in and finance the deficit by printing money as a way of supposedly holding down interest rates. Now before I turn to Mr. Brown and ask him that, I just want to make one point which is very important. The Federal Reserve’s activities in trying to hold down interest rates have put us in a position where we have the highest interest rates in history. It’s another example of how, of the difference between the announced intentions of a policy, and the actual results. But now I want to come to Clarence Brown and ask him, shift the buck to him, and put him on the hot seat for a bit. The government spending has been going up rapidly, Republican administration or Democratic administration. This is a nonpartisan issue, it doesn’t matter. Government deficits have been going up rapidly. Republican administration or Democratic administration. Why is it that here again you have the difference between pronouncements and performance? There is no Congressman, no Senator, who will come out and say, “I am in favor of inflation.” There is not a single one who will say, “I am in favor of big deficits.” They’ll all say we want to balance the budget, we want to hold down spending, we want an economical government. How do you explain the difference between performance and talk on the side of Congress?
BROWN:
FRIEDMAN: I think that is a very important point that Dr. Emminger just made because there is not a one-to-one relationship between government deficits and what happens to the money supply at all. The pressure on the Federal Reserve comes indirectly. It comes because large government deficits, if they are financed in the general capital market, will drive up interest rates and then we have the right patents in Congress and their successors pressuring the Federal Reserve to enter in and finance the deficit by printing money as a way of supposedly holding down interest rates. Now before I turn to Mr. Brown and ask him that, I just want to make one point which is very important. The Federal Reserve’s activities in trying to hold down interest rates have put us in a position where we have the highest interest rates in history. It’s another example of how, of the difference between the announced intentions of a policy, and the actual results. But now I want to come to Clarence Brown and ask him, shift the buck to him, and put him on the hot seat for a bit. The government spending has been going up rapidly, Republican administration or Democratic administration. This is a nonpartisan issue, it doesn’t matter. Government deficits have been going up rapidly. Republican administration or Democratic administration. Why is it that here again you have the difference between pronouncements and performance? There is no Congressman, no Senator, who will come out and say, “I am in favor of inflation.” There is not a single one who will say, “I am in favor of big deficits.” They’ll all say we want to balance the budget, we want to hold down spending, we want an economical government. How do you explain the difference between performance and talk on the side of Congress?
BROWN: Well, first I think we have to make one point. I’m not so much with the government as I am against it.
FRIEDMAN: I understand.
BROWN: As you know, I’m a minority member of Congress.
FRIEDMAN: Again, I’m not __ I’m not directing this at you personally.
BROWN: I understand, of course; and while the administrations, as you’ve mentioned, Republican and Democratic administrations, have both been responsible for increases in spending, at least in terms of their recommendations. It is the Congress and only the Congress that appropriates the funds and determines what the taxes are. The President has no authority to do that and so one must lay it at the feet of the U.S. Congress. Now, I guess we’d have to concede that it’s a little bit more fun to give away things than it is to withhold them. And this is the reason that the Congress responds to a general public that says, “I want you to cut everybody else’s program but the one in which I am most particularly interested. Save money, but incidentally, my wife is taking care of the orphanages and so lets try to help the orphanages,” or whatever it is. Let me try to make a point, if I can, however, on what I think is a new spirit moving within the Congress and that is that inflation, as a national affliction, is beginning to have an impact on the political psychology of many Americans. Now the Germans, the Japanese and others have had this terrific postwar inflation. The Germans have been through it twice, after World War I and World War II, and it’s a part of their national psyche. But we are affected in this country by the depression. Our whole tax structure is built on the depression. The idea of the tax structure in the past has been to get the money out of the mattress where it went after the banks failed in this country and jobs were lost, and out of the woodshed or the tin box in the back yard, get it out of there and put it into circulation. Get it moving, get things going. And one of the ways to do that was to encourage inflation. Because if you held on to it, the money would depreciate; and the other way was to tax it away from people and let the government spend it. Now there’s a reaction to that and people are beginning to say, “Wait just a minute. We’re not afflicted as much as we were by depression. We’re now afflicted by inflation, and we’d like for you to get it under control.” Now you can do that in another way and that without reducing the money supply radically. I think the Joint Economic Committee has recommended that we do it gradually. But the way that you can do it is to reduce taxes and the impact of government, that is the weight of government and increase private savings so that the private savings can finance some of the debt that you have.
FRIEDMAN: There is no way you can do it without reducing, in my opinion, the rate of monetary growth. And I, recognizing the facts, even though they ought not to be that way, I wonder whether you can reduce the rate of monetary growth unless Congress actually does reduce government spending as well as government taxes.
BROWN: The problem is that every time we use demand management, we get into a kind of an iron maiden kind of situation. We twist this way and one of the spikes grabs us here, so we twist that way and a spike over here gets us. And every recession has had higher basic unemployment rates than the previous recession in the last several years and every inflation has had higher inflation. We’ve got to get that tilt out of the society.
MCKENZIE: Wouldn’t it be fair to say, though, that a fundamental difference is the Germans are more deeply fearful of a return to inflation, having had the horrifying experience between the wars, especially. We tend to be more afraid of recession turning into depression.
EMMINGER: I think there is something in it and in particular in Germany the government would have to fear very much in their electoral prospects if they went into such an election period with a high inflation rate. But there is another important difference.
MARTIN: We fear unemployment more than inflation it seems.
EMMINGER: You fear unemployment, but unemployment is feared with us, too, but inflation is just as much feared. But there is another difference; namely, once you have got into that escalating inflation, every time the base, the plateau is higher, it’s extremely difficult to get out of it. You must avoid getting into that, now that’s very cheap advice from me because you are now.
(Laughing)
EMMINGER: But we had, for the last fifteen, twenty years, always studied foreign experiences, and told ourselves we never must get into this vicious circle. Once you are in, it takes a long time to get out of it. That is what I am preaching now, that we should avoid at all costs to get again into this vicious circle as we had it already in ’73_’74. It took us, also, four years to get out of it, although we were only at eight percent inflation. Four years to get down to three percent. So you __
MCKENZIE: Those were __ yes.
EMMINGER: You have, I think, the question of whether you can do if in a gradualist way over many, many years, or whether you don’t need a sort of shock treatment.

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We need to eliminate the Dept of Education!!!

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 We need to eliminate the Dept of Education!!!

January 9, 2014 11:10AM

Education Guns Fire Blanks in War on Poverty

A lot of federal weapons were created to fight President Lyndon Johnson’s ”War on Poverty,” and some of the biggest were in education. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Higher Education Act, and Head Start are all parts of Johnson’s overall effort to end poverty and create a “Great Society.” They also share two other things in common: pretty damning evidence that they are failures, and Cato videos laying out the bad news.

The first video – which calls for the end of the U.S. Department of Education, but in so doing highlights ESEA and HEA programs – presents the big evidence of K-12 and higher ed failure: massive spending, stagnant test scores, and turbo-charged college tuition inflation. Of course, a lot of variables affect these things, but there is simply no compelling evidence of federal success.

Downsize the Department of Education

Published on Jan 7, 2014

http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/e…

The Department of Education operates a wide range of subsidy programs for elementary and secondary schools. The aid and related federal regulations have not generally lifted academic achievement. The department also subsidizes higher education through student loan programs. Unfortunately, that aid has fueled inflation in college tuition and is subject to widespread abuse.

The department spent about $48 billion in 2013, or $400 for every U.S. household. It employs 4,300 workers and operates 153 different subsidy programs.

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What keeps these misfiring, War on Poverty blunderbusses in service? Not their effectiveness, because, well, there is precious little evidence of any. Most likely, it is that it’s very compelling to “help” the young and poor with big programs, while it is cost prohibitive for the average American, with a full-time job and other interests, to research whether these programs actually help. Finally, for most politicians – where the public-sentiment rubber meets the public-policy road – the costs of appearing not to care are much too great to act on the powerful evidence that voters rarely see.

Hopefully, voters will see these videos.

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Open letter to President Obama (Part 495) (Wasting our tax dollars!!!)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 495)

(Emailed to White House on 5-4-13.)

President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

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Sad that the government wastes so much of our money and it wants more from us under President Obama.

Remember the Spending Quiz from 2010, which asked people to guess whether absurd examples of government waste were true or false?

Well, we have a new video on government waste, though bureaucrats and politicians have become so profligate it doesn’t even bother to trick people with fake examples.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

While very well done, I do have two small complaints about the video.

First, it asks whether we should cut spending or raise taxes to deal with the national debt. I think that’s too narrow. We shouldn’t be wasting money even if the budget was balanced and there wasn’t a penny of debt.

In other words, the problem isn’t deficits. Red ink is just a symptom. The real problem is that government is too big.

Second, the video sort of acquiesces to the dishonest Washington terminology by asking whether we should cut spending or raise taxes, implying those are the only two options. I favor genuine spending cuts, of course, but the most accurate way of phrasing the question is to ask whether we should cut spending, restrain spending, or let government grow on auto-pilot.

As I explained earlier this year, we can balance the budget in just 10 years if spending grows “only” 3.4 percent per year. When people understand that detail, there’s almost no support for higher taxes.

But I’m nitpicking. Overall, a very good video.

P.S. If the examples of pork-barrel spending in the video get you angry, you’ll probably have a stroke if you also watch the waste video from the folks at Government Gone Wild.

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Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

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Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute:HUD has to go!!!! (includes political cartoon)

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January 13, 2014 – 12:55 am Categories: Cato Institute, Economist Dan Mitchell, President Obama, spending out of control | Post a comment