Francis Schaeffer’s wife Edith passes away on Easter weekend 2013 Part 10 (includes pro-life editorial cartoon and article from World Magazine)

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

The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story – Part 3 of 3

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

Published on Oct 6, 2012 by

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Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the 1930′s above. I was sad to read about Edith passing away on Easter weekend in 2013. I wanted to pass along this fine article below.

Edith Schaeffer, 1914-2013

Obituary | The widow of Francis Schaeffer and co-founder of L’Abri Fellowship is remembered for her humanity, humility, and hospitality

Edith and Francis SchaefferEnlarge Image

Photo by Sylvester Jacobs/Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Seminary
Edith and Francis Schaeffer

Edith Schaeffer, co-founder of L’Abri Fellowship, author of 17 books, and widow of pastor/author Francis Schaeffer, died today at age 98.

She was born Nov. 3, 1914, to missionary parents in Wenzhou, China, and met her husband-to-be at the First Presbyterian Church in Germantown, Pa., on June 26, 1932, where a Unitarian was explaining his reasons for denying the Bible’s teachings about God and about Christ’s deity. Even as Edith planned to stand up and argue her position, Francis stood up and began arguing his. Then Edith stood and spoke.

She wore a wreath of white flowers in her hair on July 6, 1935, leaving school a year early to marry the lean, clean-shaven, and determined “Fran.” Her hospitality complemented Francis’ anguish for the lost. The Schaeffers—then with three daughters, Priscilla, Deborah, and Susan—moved to Switzerland as missionaries in 1948. There the Schaeffers had a son, Frank.

Among Edith Schaeffer’s greatest contributions to the world: her humanity, artistic nature, humility, and hospitality. Sometimes Sunday lunch boasted as many as 36 guests, but she always made more food than she expected to need. She made rolls by hand, forming them individually, sometimes into the shapes of snails, topping them with different kinds of seeds, and turning the leftover dough into cinnamon rolls. She would sometimes stop in the process of roll making to take a phone call, then pray for the caller. “You keep making the rolls,” she’d say to her assistant Mary Jane Grooms. “I’ll pray.”

As introductions commenced at the 36-person Sunday lunch, Edith’s assistant Mike Sugimoto was astonished by her personal interest in every person in the room. He also expressed awe over Edith’s ability to connect with the cultural traditions of the people of Italy and France, her devoted praying (oral and written), and the notes she wrote all over her Bible.

Since L’Abri was never flush with money, its meals contained little meat, but Edith kept an extensive vegetable garden, and guests dined on what Grooms remembered as “wonderful, healthy food.” For Edith, Grooms said, hospitality meant a real love for strangers, and having time for them when she didn’t have time for them: “‘Sit at our dinner table, have a meal with us, sleep in our beds, under our roof.’ It’s a very costly thing to do with your life and family.”

Grooms described Edith as a homemaking artist with more energy than most human beings: Her credo and biggest lesson to the world was to do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way in the Lord’s strength, not your own. Edith sometimes lectured on “The Art of Living and the Courage to Be Creative,” laughing a grainy laugh while exhorting her audience to do small artistic kindnesses: draw a banana beside “banana” on the grocery list, read aloud and try a Yiddish accent, or mimic the Queen of England. Or, even, think ahead to start the coffee.

Edith Schaeffer’s books include L’Abri, Christianity Is Jewish, and What Is a Family?

It is a fact that President Obama has done everything in his power to advance abortion rights as this editorial cartoon shows.

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

Related posts:

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

E P I S O D E 1 0   Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 8 “The Age of Fragmentation” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 7 “The Age of Non-Reason” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 6 “The Scientific Age” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 5 “The Revolutionary Age” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 4 “The Reformation” (Schaeffer Sundays)

Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]

“Schaeffer Sundays” Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance”

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 2 “The Middle Ages” (Schaeffer Sundays)

  Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 1 “The Roman Age” (Schaeffer Sundays)

Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE   Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]

May 1, 2013 – 1:10 am Categories: Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Post a comment

A suggestion to cut some wasteful spending out of the government Part 5 (includes editorial cartoon)

Does Government Have a Revenue or Spending Problem?

People say the government has a debt problem. Debt is caused by deficits, which is the difference between what the government collects in tax revenue and the amount of government spending. Every time the government runs a deficit, the government debt increases. So what’s to blame: too much spending, or too little tax revenue? Economics professor Antony Davies examines the data and concludes that the root cause of the debt is too much government spending.

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Will Rogers has a great quote that I love. He noted, “Lord, the money we do spend on Government and it’s not one bit better than the government we got for one-third the money twenty years ago”(Paula McSpadden Love, The Will Rogers Book, (1972) p. 20.)

We got to cut wasteful spending out of the government and here is another fine suggestion from the Heritage Foundation.

Todd Thurman

March 12, 2013 at 5:40 pm

Newscom

The massive spending bill, or continuing resolution, released by the Senate this week continues spending on programs which are inappropriate or wasteful and fails to adopt good policies in many areas. Here’s a rundown of some of the worst offenders in the Senate bill:

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP): $77.2 billion. The recommendation continues record-high food stamp benefits. Food stamp spending has approximately doubled since President Obama came to office. It is one of the largest and fastest growing federal welfare programs. The federal government operates 80 federal welfare programs at a cost of nearly $1 trillion a year. Over 10 of these provide food assistance.

Food stamp spending should be rolled back to pre-recession levels. Able-bodied adults without dependents who receive food stamp benefits should be required to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving benefits.

—Rachel Sheffield, Research Associate

Job Corps: $30 million added to the funding level already provided under sequestration. This program should be terminated, because a scientifically rigorous impact evaluation of Job Corps participants were less likely to obtain high school degrees, were no more likely to attend or complete college, and earned only $0.22 more in hourly wages than non-participants. Further, the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General estimates each Job Corps participant who is successfully placed into any job costs taxpayers $76,574.

Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) grants: $416.5 million. VAWA grants should be terminated, because these services should be funded locally. Using federal agencies to fund the routine operations of domestic violence programs that state and local governments could provide is a misuse of federal resources and a distraction from concerns that are truly the province of the federal government.

Office of Justice Programs (OJP) grants: $1.1 billion. OJP grants should be terminated, because these grants assign functions to the federal government that fall within the expertise, jurisdiction, and constitutional responsibilities of state and local governments. Further, the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants ($392 million) within OJP have been used to place criminals on the street without posting bail.

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP): $279.5 million. OJJDP grants should be terminated, because these grants fund juvenile justice and prevention programs that fall under the unique responsibilities of state and local governments. Further, there is little evidence that these grants are effective at preventing delinquency.

Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS): $225.5 million. COPS grants should be terminated, because these grants assign functions to the federal government that fall within the expertise, jurisdiction, and constitutional responsibilities of state and local governments. Further COPS grants were used to supplant local funds and had little to no effect on reducing crime.

FEMA Fire Grants: $675 million. Fire grants should be terminated. Fire grants, which subsidize the routine operations of local fire departments, are ineffective at reducing fire-related deaths and injuries of firefighters and civilians. Fire grants incorrectly encourage local fire departments to become increasingly dependent on federal funding.

—David B. Muhlhausen, Ph.D., Research Fellow in Empirical Policy Analysis

In my speeches, especially when talking about the fiscal crisis in Europe (or the future fiscal crisis in America), I often warn that the welfare state reaches a point-of-no-return when the number of people riding in the wagon begins to outnumber the number of people pulling the wagon.

To be more specific, if more than 50 percent of the population is dependent on government (employed in the bureaucracy, living off welfare, receiving pensions, etc), it becomes rather difficult to form a coalition to fix the mess. This may explain why Greek politicians have resisted significant reforms, even though the nation faces a fiscal death spiral.

But you don’t need me to explain this relationship. One of our Cato interns, Silvia Morandotti, used her artistic skills to create two images (click pictures for better resolution) that show what a welfare state looks like when it first begins and what it eventually becomes.

These images are remarkably accurate. The welfare state starts with small programs targeted at a handful of genuinely needy people. But as  politicians figure out the electoral benefits of expanding programs and people figure out the that they can let others work on their behalf, the ratio of producers to consumers begins to worsen.

Eventually, even though the moochers and looters should realize that it is not in their interest to over-burden the people pulling the wagon, the entire system breaks down.

Then things get really interesting. Small nations such as Greece can rely on permanent bailouts from bigger countries and the IMF, but sooner or later, as larger nations begin to go bankrupt, that approach won’t be feasible.

I often conclude my speeches by joking with the audience that it’s time to stock up on canned goods, bottled water, and ammo. Many people, I’m finding, don’t think that line very funny.

If you spend too much then people won’t want to work anymore.
May 1, 2013 – 1:00 am Categories: Current Events, spending out of control | Post a comment

Guest Blog (Bruce Little): An Encounter with Francis Schaeffer

Guest Blog (Bruce Little): An Encounter with Francis Schaeffer

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

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

Guest Blog (Bruce Little): An Encounter with Francis Schaeffer

October 20, 2010 by Between the Times

A Personal Encounter with Francis Schaeffer

I remember hearing Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984) in person, several weeks before his death, at a large gathering on the campus of a Christian University. Schaeffer was of particular importance to me. At the time, in April 1984, I was attending a graduate seminar on Schaeffer so it was perfect timing. Just a few years before, I had first felt the force of Schaeffer’s thought through reading his books, and now I was having the opportunity to hear him in person as he was on a speaking tour promoting his latest book, The Great Evangelical Disaster. I have vivid memories of that night. I watched as he was helped to the platform and then remained seated even while he spoke. By this time cancer had so weakened him physically that standing was out of the question. In fact, at that time I was told that his diet consisted mainly of milkshakes.

After Schaeffer delivered his lecture, the audience was invited to ask questions. I remember one young man who began his question by reviewing some of what Schaeffer had just noted (and as many young men tend to do, he tried to impress the crowd with his knowledge, struggling to put his mini-speech into the form of a question). And alas, after the young man launched a rather dramatic presentation of his insights, he concluded by picturing the Church in the tenth round, bloody and beaten and on its knees. Then, at last, he asked his question. He wondered if there was any hope the Church could win given his analysis of the situation.

Dr. Schaeffer leaned forward and brought the microphone to his lips. A hush came over the audience as it awaited the response. Then Schaeffer said, “If we do it to win, we have lost already. We do not do it to win, but because our risen Lord has commanded us.” What an answer! I have told this story so many times I embarrass myself, but the power of that response moves me each time I think of it. In fact, I often have been encouraged as well as challenged by those words. And for this, I am forever grateful for that night I heard Dr. Schaeffer. That was 26 years ago, not so long when you think about it, but it has been long enough for the name of Francis Schaeffer to fade from the evangelical memory. My hope is that Francis Schaeffer’s life and ministry will not fade from memory, but will instead remain present to our minds as a model of faithful witness. Perhaps this blogpost will be the catalyst for some of our readers to read Schaeffer’s works and benefit from them.

A Brief Biography of Francis Schaeffer

Schaeffer spent most of his adult life in Europe with his wife Edith and their four children (three girls and one boy). Francis and Edith went to Switzerland shortly after World War II. I once asked his daughter, Deborah, why her dad chose Switzerland. She explained that many people in those days in Europe thought there would be another war and her dad wanted the family to be safe in the event such a concern materialized. For this reason, they chose a remote village in the Swiss Alps where they founded L’Abri Fellowship (only after they were told to leave one little community because Schaeffer was having a religious influence on their predominantly Roman Catholic populace). The story of the L’Abri (the word means Shelter) ministry can be found in Edith Schaeffer’s wonderful book, The Tapestry.

Over the years, hundreds and perhaps thousands of people journeyed to L’Abri (for stays that ranged from days to months) where some found Christ as Savior and others were strengthened in their faith. This was especially true in the 60s and 70s; those of us who lived through those times remember the political and social upheaval as students on both sides of the Atlantic went full throttle into a rebellious mode. Many evangelicals merely condemned the senseless destruction-of course, in one sense it needed to be condemned-while ignoring the questions raised by the rebels. Schaeffer, on the other hand, listened carefully to their questions and helped them to see how historic Christianity answered those questions coherently and consistently. Many of us remember those days and not without some residual anxiety. Many evangelicals responded by entrenching, but Schaeffer chose to engage the young people and the intellectuals (many were existentialist) on their own terms. He showed them that their explanation of the world was inconsistent with and insufficient for the world in which they lived., and that Christianity answered those questions consistently and sufficiently.

Consequently, Schaeffer eventually earned the reputation of having a mission to the European intellectual. In 1960, Time magazine suggested that the mission of Schaeffer was to target the European intellectual. The truth is that the Schaeffers had been sent to war-torn Europe in 1948 by the Presbyterian mission board to work among children, many who had been orphaned by the war. That often comes as a surprise to those not well acquainted with Schaeffer, because by the time he was well-known, it was not for children’s work, but work among young people and intellectuals. Furthermore, Schaeffer became known as an apologist (Some evangelicals loved him but others were suspicious of him, mainly because of the way he dressed!). He defended the faith in a way that challenged traditional categories. For this reason, he is difficult to label. Although some commentators claim that he was a presuppositionalist, Schaeffer tells us that he had no one method apologetically.

A Basic Overview of Schaeffer’s Apologetic

In order to understand Schaeffer’s approach to evangelism and apologetics, one must give attention to the three works that reveal the foundation of his understanding of man, reality, and the Bible. These three books serve as the foundation for all his other books, forming a trilogy: The God Who Is There, Escape from Reason, and He Is There and He Is Not Silent. According to Schaeffer all his other books fit into these as “spokes of the wheel into the hub.” In 1982, Schaeffer himself edited his works, which were published in a five-volume set, including the trilogy in the order in which they were written. This order reveals the development of his thinking apologetically and is essential to understanding Schaeffer and his apologetic method.

In these three books, one learns how Schaeffer’s view of man shaped his apologetic approach (which for him was part and parcel of his evangelism). According to Schaeffer, historic Christianity is creation-centered. Furthermore, central to creation is the truth that God created man in his image. The first apologetic implication of this truth is that man has intrinsic worth which means he is to be treated with respect and love. This truth shaped Schaeffer’s life and ministry as he was motivated and directed by love and compassion for man as a person. Apologetics, he urged, must be “shaped on the basis of love for the person as a person.”

While Schaeffer did not minimize the historic fall recorded in Genesis, he argued that the fall “did not lead to machineness, but to fallen-manness.” There was a greatness to man even though man could also be very cruel. Schaeffer spoke of man being noble, not because of man’s achievements, but because of who he was as a creation of God-man was not a “zero,” to use Schaeffer’s words. Only Christianity, Schaeffer said, could explain both the greatness and the cruelty of man. This truth moved Schaeffer to take all men seriously and to answer the honest questions of fallen man. Furthermore, he argued that the Christian must take care to understand the person by looking carefully at cultural artifacts (especially the arts) to understand the underlying worldviews and presuppositions revealed in them.

According to Schaeffer, the second apologetic implication of creation was the intelligibility of creation. The categories of the mind of man correspond to the structure of the world as God had created both. The result, Schaeffer argued, was that common ground existed between the Christian and the non-Christian. This is not something man put upon the universe; it is simply the way it is. Man lives in a morally structured, rational universe and no matter how he might try to live against the way the universe is, Schaeffer was sure it would push back at him and create tension for his non-Christian presuppositions.

The Christian’s apologetic task, according to Schaeffer, is to show man where the point of tension existed between his presuppositions and the way the world really is. Schaffer’s approach was to push man towards the logic of his position in the area of his own real interests. Schaeffer believed that man builds a sort of philosophical shelter to protect himself from the blows of the real world. The Christian must lovingly remove the shelter and allow man to feel the blows from the real world, both internally and externally.

Of course this was not a game for Schaeffer and he urged the Christian always to give the answer as understood in light of historic Christianity and to do so in a loving and compassionate tone. He was convinced that when speaking to the non-Christian the first truth to present was that of the truth of the real world and the reality of man himself. For Schaeffer, the real point of contact with the modern (and post modern mind) was reality. Regardless what presuppositions a man claims as grounds for his worldview, Schaeffer showed how they can be tested for truthfulness when pressed against the reality in which every person must live.

Schaeffer’s life, ministry, and writings are instructive for evangelicals today. One more than one level, he remains an important apologetic resource for Christians in the 21st century. For this reason, the L. Russ Bush Center at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary houses the Francis A. Schaeffer Archives. The Schaeffer Archives includes a voluminous collection of unpublished papers, source materials, correspondence, and recorded discussions of Schaeffer, thanks to the generosity of the Francis A. Schaeffer Foundation.

[Editor’s note: For further reading about the Schaeffer archives, see the articles at the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture (SEBTS) and the Evangelical Philosophical Society.]

Francis Schaeffer

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Related posts:

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

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

May 1, 2013 – 12:00 am Categories: Francis Schaeffer | Post a comment

Medicaid mistake in Arkansas

I know and love many of the Arkansas Republicans that voted for this poor solution in Arkansas but my friend Dan Greenberg got it right in this article below when he takes them to task.

Medicaid Expansion in Arkansas: A Fig Leaf, Not a Solution

April 30, 2013 at 5:05 pm

MedicaidChart_ARKANSAS_FINAL

As action to stop Obamacare languishes in Washington, the debate continues at the state level. Heritage is hosting a series of health care reports from our allies in the states to provide an up-close view of state-level action regarding Obamacare.

The states play an important role in protecting citizens against this flawed federal health care law–from challenging the health care law before the Supreme Court, to resisting efforts to establish Obamacare exchanges or expand a failing Medicaid program, to offering alternative proposals that will ensure citizens are not left abandoned when the federal law collapses.

Today, Dan Greenberg—President of the Advance Arkansas Institute—updates Foundry readers on developments in Arkansas.

A bipartisan alliance succeeded in convincing the Arkansas legislature to expand Medicaid. That was because enough Republicans were won over by the legislation’s theoretically pro-market design. However, a closer look suggests a textbook case of a beautiful theory slain by ugly facts.

Republican proponents of expansion claimed that the proposal was fundamentally different from a traditional Medicaid expansion, because it would enroll the new Medicaid clients in private insurance through the state’s Obamacare exchange. They dubbed it the “private option,” and argued that private plans would provide better care at lower cost.

When the arrangement was first proposed, it was greeted with cautious optimism in some quarters. But that optimism predated the “Good Friday memo” from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which clarified that any Medicaid expansion provided through private coverage would still have to conform to standard Medicaid benefit requirements and cost-sharing limitations.

In plain English, the maneuver Arkansas was contemplating would gain the state no additional flexibility on benefits or cost sharing beyond the (very limited) scope allowed under current federal Medicaid rules.

Thus, the notion that the “private option” could somehow produce significantly lower costs and better patient outcomes relative to traditional Medicaid became highly doubtful. At best, it would simply be a variant on the existing and common strategy of states contracting with private managed care companies to deliver Medicaid benefits. Yet, while the policy differences were vanishingly small, to the point of nonexistent, the rhetorical shift was enough for the pro-expansion forces to eke out a win in the end. Given that, it is worth deconstructing the rhetoric offered in support of the Arkansas plan.

  • The expansion isn’t really an expansion. Medicaid expansion, explained Republican Representative Charlie Collins, “is dead.” The expansion that Republican lawmakers were crafting was supposedly categorically different. Collins argued that the “private option” would take hundreds of thousands of people off the Medicaid rolls. Yet the notion that clients who get their Medicaid benefits through a private plan are somehow not on the Medicaid rolls is as factually incorrect as saying that seniors who get their Medicare benefits through a private Medicare Advantage plan are magically not in Medicare.
  • Reforming the state’s existing Medicaid program required expanding Medicaid to new enrollees. Private-option advocates argued that a number of taxpayer-friendly Medicaid reforms included in the legislation were part of the private option, implying that those reforms were an inseparable part of Medicaid expansion, but the need for joining these two measures was never explained. Indeed, at no point in the debate did the advocates offer to simply strip out the expansion provisions and then enact the other, meritorious reforms—such as new measures to detect and deter Medicaid fraud and abuse.
  • Medicaid expansion was linked to tax relief and economic growth. Democratic Governor Mike Beebe claimed that the two were linked, while Republican Speaker of the House Davy Carter provided a more nuanced explanation suggesting that negotiations over tax relief were in conjunction with Medicaid expansion. Speaker Carter also appeared to argue that the private option would increase net state government revenue. Shortly after the votes for Medicaid expansion were secured in the House, multiple tax relief bills began to roll onto the House floor. Yet, after the votes for Medicaid expansion were secured in the Senate, most of those tax relief bills were immediately amended so that they would not take effect until future budget years. If there was, in fact, some deal between the Governor and the legislative leadership that tied tax relief to the Medicaid expansion, its terms were never made public.
  • Arkansas could exit from expansion if federal promises weren’t kept. The legislation included provisions for the state to reverse the expansion if the federal government’s promised funding declined in the future. Setting aside the political question of how likely it is for politicians to terminate a government program—especially one that creates hundreds of thousands of new clients—once it has begun, there are also legal and constitutional questions about whether the contractual commitments that Medicaid expansion creates might make it a one-way street. To their credit, private-option advocates attempted to minimize the “Hotel California” problem with a last-minute amendment to their bill.

In sum, the advocates of Medicaid expansion in Arkansas built bipartisan political support by linking the Medicaid expansion to conservative reform. Republican Senator Jeremy Hutchinson argued on the Senate floor that the private option was a “down payment” on future reform of “entitlement programs.” Republican Senator Jason Rapert argued that the private option was “essentially what we all say we want—Medicaid block grant funding to allow states to innovate for their own populations.” Indeed, Representative Collins argued that the private option would allow Arkansas to “transcend Obamacare” while Speaker Carter insisted that a vote for the private option is “a vote against Obamacare.”

Such statements are less analytical than rhetorical—and to those who understand the basic workings of Medicaid and Obamacare, they are unpersuasive. In any event, such statements were enough to let Governor Beebe achieve his goal of expanding Arkansas’s Medicaid program.

Dan Greenberg, the President of the Advance Arkansas Institute, is both a former member of the Arkansas legislature and a former Heritage Foundation analyst.

Related posts:

‘Why Indiana Shouldn’t Fall for Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion’

April 26, 2013 – 6:29 am

Expanding government is not right. Take a look at this article: APRIL 25, 2013 6:35PM ‘Why Indiana Shouldn’t Fall for Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion’ By  MICHAEL F. CANNON SHARE My latest oped, in the Indy Star: Meanwhile, many [Medicaid] enrollees can’t even find a doctor. One-third of primary care physicians won’t take new Medicaid patients. Only 20 percent of […]

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Conservatives win the first round in the medicaid expansion debate

April 15, 2013 – 3:02 pm

  I was glad to see that the true Tea Party Conservatives won the first round in the medicaid expansion debate. According to AFP in the last 5 years Arkansas’ current Medicaid program has run a deficit of a billion dollars. Why expand it willingly with Obama? The “Do Nothing” expansion plan increases spending by […]

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Will President give up any control of Medicaid program to the states?

April 8, 2013 – 7:35 am

CATO Institute Michael Cannon on the OReilly Factor Published on Mar 19, 2013 The CATO Institute’s Michael Cannon spoke at the Arkansas Conservative Caucus on Tuesday March 19th. Several conservatives were present. Cannon talked about how to defeat Obamacare in Arkansas & how the states can stop Obamacare on a national level. Max Brantley of […]

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Rick Crawford warns Republican state lawmakers about expanding medicaid program in Arkansas

April 6, 2013 – 2:16 pm

Nic Horton Medicaid Expansion will “Cost Almost Double than Doing Nothing” part II _______ I am hopeful that the Arkansas Republican state lawmakers will not expand the broken medicaid program. Evidently Congressman Rick Crawford feels strongly about this too. Crawford: Even With Arkansas Plan, ObamaCare Is Unaffordable Crawford urges state legislators to reject ObamaCare, because […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Healthcare | Edit | Comments (0)

Heritage Foundation mentions Arkansas lawmakers and medicaid expansion

April 5, 2013 – 12:27 pm

Mike Maharrey talks AR Medicaid Expansion on the PHP ______________ This article from the Heritage Foundation mentions that the lawmakers in Arkansas are getting ready to make a big mistake if they think they will get flexibility from Obamacare on Medicaid expansion. Administration Rules Out “Deals” on Medicaid Expansion Edmund Haislmaier April 3, 2013 at […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Cato Institute, Economist Dan Mitchell | Edit | Comments (0)

Americans for Prosperity against expanding Medicaid in Arkansas

April 5, 2013 – 4:12 am

  A Red-Ink Train Wreck: The Real Fiscal Cost of Government-Run Healthcare Uploaded on Nov 9, 2009 This CF&P Foundation video explains why healthcare proposals in Washington will result in bloated government and higher deficits. This mini-documentary exposes the pervasive inaccuracy of congressional forecasts and succinctly lists 12 reasons why Obamacare will be a budget […]

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Great article by Michael Cannon on Arkansas Medicaid expansion plan

April 1, 2013 – 11:09 am

CATO Institute Michael Cannon on the OReilly Factor Published on Mar 19, 2013 The CATO Institute’s Michael Cannon spoke at the Arkansas Conservative Caucus on Tuesday March 19th. Several conservatives were present. Cannon talked about how to defeat Obamacare in Arkansas & how the states can stop Obamacare on a national level. __________________ CATO Institute […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Cato Institute, Healthcare, President Obama, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

States response to Obamacare and Medicaid expansion

March 14, 2013 – 9:40 am

Great article from Heritage Foundation: Chart of the Week: The States That Have Expanded Medicaid T. Elliot Gaiser March 13, 2013 at 5:30 pm         «Expanding Medicaid will be costly for most states. The authors of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (Obamacare) threatened to strip all federal funding […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Healthcare | Edit | Comments (0)

Heritage Foundation says Arkansas would be “net payer” while NY would be “net saver” with medicaid expansion (editiorial cartoon included)

March 5, 2013 – 1:36 pm

New York is the real winner in medicaid expansion  while Arkansas would lose out in the long run. The Arkansas Times has reported that Republican lawmakers were warming up to the idea of expansion recently. The representatives and senators in Arkansas need to take a close look at both this article below and this editorial […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Cato Institute, Current Events, Economist Dan Mitchell, Healthcare | Edit | Comments (0)

Arkansas should not take the federal Medicaid deal because the money is not free but we pay for it!!!

January 28, 2013 – 6:56 am

The Medicaid deals being presented by the federal government seem like great deals until you realize that the taxpayer will end up paying the bill and the taxpayer is us!!!! January 25, 2013 5:09PM Federal Money to the States Isn’t ‘Free’ By Tad DeHaven Share Tweet Like Google+1 Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist A. Barton Hinkle recently […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Cato Institute | Edit | Comments (0)
April 30, 2013 – 5:08 pm Categories: Cato Institute, Current Events | Post a comment

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Truth Tuesday:Memories of a mentor: Francis Schaeffer by Denis Haack

__________________

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 Denis Haack 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

In the years since his death in 1984 it’s been interesting to watch and listen as people have claimed, explicitly or implicitly, to be carrying on the legacy of Francis Schaeffer.
I am not including here those who continue to serve as Workers in L’Abri Fellowship, the study communities that grew out of the conversations and hospitality the Schaeffers offered a growing number of young adults who trekked to their chalet in Switzerland beginning in the mid-fifties. The work of L’Abri continues, and though the shape of that work in the various centers in Europe, America, and Asia has not remained static, it consciously and intentionally stands on the shoulders of Edith and Francis who walked that path originally. As someone who honors Francis Schaeffer as a mentor, I happily remember him as a teacher who invested untold hours in listening to my questions and discussing the world with its trends and ideas that help shape lives and cultures. I think—I hope—I learned from him, and want to try to faithfully put into practice the best that I learned from and saw in him. I have no illusions, on the other hand, of continuing Schaeffer’s legacy—that role is best assumed not by me but by those in L’Abri and by Jerram Barrs, Resident Scholar of the Francis A. Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Theological Seminary in St Louis.
What I’ve found interesting are people who are outside L’Abri but who invoke the Schaeffer name as a sort of imprimatur to provide gravitas for their own ideas and work. The ones I’m referring to here are found on the conservative or right wing of the American political continuum, and are active in promoting what’s come to be called the “culture war.”
And I must say that as I have watched and listened as people active in conservative culture war politics claim Schaeffer’s legacy, I am not impressed. Here are three reasons.
1. Culture wars and worldviews. When James Davison Hunter published Culture Wars in 1992 he was reporting on a sociological reality, not issuing a call to political activism. Hunter is a careful observer of American society and understood that the divisions over economic, social, religious, and political issues arise primarily not due to pragmatic reasons or because people are uninformed, but because the American people hold widely differing worldviews that inform their views on the issues. This insight should have helped Christians concerned for truth and culture to remember what Schaeffer had insisted on all along, namely that everyone holds a world and life view, that challenging another’s worldview must be approached with compassion in an intentionally safe community where people love and care for one another, and that though the history of ideas is crucial for discussing worldviews, worldviews are far more than simply ideas that can be debated. Instead, conservative culture warriors claiming Schaeffer’s legacy have done the opposite: they ratcheted up their rhetoric in the public square, declared war to take back the culture, and started attacking liberals, secularists, environmentalists, and anyone else who dared question their conservative ideology and agenda as the ones against whom the worldview war must be fought. Just the opposite of what Schaeffer stood for, demonstrated, and taught.
2. Faithful citizenship and politicizing life. Throughout his life Schaeffer argued that because Christ is Lord of all, Christianity has something substantial to say into every sphere of life and reality. This included politics, so that unlike the earlier withdrawal from involvement in politics led by evangelical leaders after the Second Great awakening, Christians could and should see the call to politics as a legitimate vocation and fulfill their duty as citizens being motivated to seek the common good for all. Instead, conservative culture warriors have (along with more progressive believers) politicized life, making politics the central animating focus for seeking to change the world. One symptom of politicization is when people judge another’s moral integrity on the basis of their voting or party affiliation. As James Davison Hunter puts it in his latest book, To Change the World (2010), “the public has been conflated with the political” (p. 168). This in the end not only dismisses the richly nuanced nature of human existence and human society by reducing all spheres of life to the political, it is a practical denial of Christ’s Lordship. When Schaeffer called for Christians to be faithful as citizens he did so while calling them to be faithful across all of life and culture, and from that perspective only a tiny slice is in any way even remotely connected to politics. Another symptom of politicization is when the discussion of every societal or human problem rather quickly resolves into a discussion of politics. The political sphere of life has dignity and is significant, but in reality its scope is extremely limited.
3. Conservative ideology and caring for the earth. It is not surprising that the book by Schaeffer that conservative culture warriors seldom quote is one of the most significant if someone is to claim his legacy. Because Schaeffer’s thinking and living was informed by Scripture rather than by political ideology he wrote Pollution and the Death of Man (1972). The book is made up of two themes. First, Schaeffer refutes the charge that the Christian view of creation is to blame for the ecological degradation found in the modern West by elevating the value of the “spiritual” over the “physical.” And second, Schaeffer goes on to show how Christians must care for the earth because the earth is the Lord’s, we are stewards, and the physical matters because God said it was good. The physical world matters not just a little, but a great deal. How great? Schaeffer gives a specific. “One does not deface things simply to deface them. One would not willingly with no reason deface a rock. After all, the rock has a God-given right to be a rock as He made it. If you must move the rock in order to build the foundation of a house, then, by all means, move it. But on a walk in the woods do not strip the moss from it for no reason and leave it to lie by the side and die. Even the moss has a right to live. It is equal with man as a creature of God.” Instead, conservative culture warriors have adopted an ideology that is broadly understood to be cynical about scientific research, to be insensitive to caring for the earth, and is unwilling to act on the obvious truth that environmental degradation is a cost that must be factored into plans for economic development. Schaeffer was correct to argue in Pollution and the Death of Man against the charge that the biblical understanding of creation leads to an elevation of the “spiritual” at the expense of the physical. Unfortunately, the charge can be made today that conservative culture warriors claiming Schaeffer’s legacy

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Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part A “The Pro-life Issue” (Francis Schaeffer Quotes Part 1 includes the film SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS) (editorial cartoon)

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

It is not possible to know where the pro-life evangelicals are coming from unless you look at the work of the person who inspired them the most. That person was Francis Schaeffer.  I do care about economic issues but the pro-life issue is the most important to me. Several years ago Adrian Rogers (past president of […]

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The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story Pt.1 – Today’s Christian Videos The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story – Part 3 of 3 Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the […]

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“Schaeffer Sundays” Francis Schaeffer’s own words concerning humanist dominated public schools in USA even though country was founded on a Christian base

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April 30, 2013 – 7:40 am Categories: Francis Schaeffer | Post a comment

Open letter to President Obama (Part 308)

Dan Mitchell Debating the Buffett Rule on CNBC

Published on Apr 10, 2012 by

No description available.

 

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.

Over and over you have said that the purpose of raising taxes on the rich would be to stop deficit spending. However, if we took all the money away from the rich we still would not have a balanced budget. Don’t we need to stop the overspending?

Mike Brownfield

April 16, 2012 at 2:22 pm

President Obama says his “Buffett Rule” — which imposes higher taxes on wealthy Americans and job creators — will help “stabilize our debt and deficits for the next decade.” But if you compare how much money his policy raises with how much he’d like to spend, you get a much different picture.

The Buffett Rule would impose a minimum 30 percent tax on businesses and families earning $1 million. That would bring in $47 billion in revenue in ten years. Next to the President’s budget, which adds $6.7 trillion to the national debt, you can see that Obama’s answer to America’s budget woes isn’t much of an answer at all. Do the math, and you’ll find that the Buffett Rule would cover just 0.7% of all of Obama’s debt and .1% of Obama’s spending.

As you can see, that’s a small drop in a very large bucket.

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

April 30, 2013 – 6:45 am Categories: Cato Institute, President Obama, spending out of control, Taxes | Post a comment

Francis Schaeffer’s wife Edith passes away on Easter weekend 2013 Part 9 (includes pro-life editorial cartoon and tribute by Tim Challies)

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

The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story – Part 3 of 3

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

Published on Oct 6, 2012 by

________________

Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the 1930′s above. I was sad to read about Edith passing away on Easter weekend in 2013. I wanted to pass along this fine article below.

Edith Schaeffer (1914 – 2013)

Francis and EdithEdith Schaeffer (nee Seville) has gone to be with the Lord at the age of 98. She was born on November 3, 1914 in Wenzhou, China, the child of missionaries associated with China Inland Missions. As a young adult she attended Beaver College in Glenside, Pennsylvania and it was there that she met Francis Schaeffer. The two were married in 1935. Francis subsequently attended Westminster Theological Seminary and went on to pastorates in Pennsylvania and Missouri.

In 1948 the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions sent the Schaeffers to Switzerland as missionaries. In 1955, after identifying significant disagreements with IBPFM and subsequently withdrawing from that organization, they decided to simply open up their home and make it available as a place to demonstrate God’s love and provide a forum for discussing God and the meaning of life. They called it L’Abri after the French word for “shelter.” By the mid-1950’s up to 30 people each week were visiting.

Edith had an integral role in maintaining the home and mentoring those who visited. She wrote or co-wrote twenty books, including Affliction, a book on suffering, and the autobiographical The Tapestry: the Life and Times of Francis and Edith Schaeffer, each of which received the Gold Medallion Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (in 1979 and 1982 respectively).

My parents were among the many young people who spent time at L’Abri. I will leave it to my mother to fill in the details.

I think I have told you before of my first encounter with Edith Schaeffer, but I would like to do so again. It was the summer of 1972 and John and I were enroute to Toronto, via Geneva, after several weeks in Florence. We decided to travel into the mountains and visit L’Abri on our way home. We were barely converted, and were already trying to sort out various systems of theology. This seemed a good opportunity to investigate the Reformed alternative.

We traveled up the mountain and got off the bus right in front of the Schaeffers’ door. Within a few minutes, Edith had introduced herself to us, and invited us to Sunday lunch. I was amazed that she had time for us, that she truly seemed interested in us in the brief minutes we had with her. But she truly won my heart with the following little incident.

During our time in Florence we had met a young man who had just come from L’Abri. He assured us that Francis Schaeffer had told him confidentially that he did not believe men exercised their will truly and responsibly. God’s sovereignty overrode that. I outlined what he had said to Mrs. Schaeffer. She just shook her head, and called upstairs, “Fran, listen to what that dingbat, Bob, told these two.” I loved her on the spot. She was real!

Within the next few years I read most of her books and grew to love her more and more. She taught me about the beauty of home and family. She modeled the wonderful and powerful virtues of Christian hospitality. And she was a good theologian in her own right.

I think her “Bird’s Eye View of the Bible” is unequalled in its concise and user-friendly presentation of biblical theology. Her longer version of the same, Christianity is Jewish, is one of the most helpful books i have ever read. In other words, she and her husband presented the gospel by starting at the beginning of God’s truth—in Genesis—and following the story through to its end (and new beginning) in Revelation. I am convinced that, along with their own winsomeness, that is the reason so many people were converted under their ministry. Did they seek to take captive and destroy worldly intellectual strongholds? Yes, certainly. But always in order to make way for that beautiful gospel she—they—then presented so magnificently and simply.

So, what can I say? I am in her debt now and forever. She was a faithful Mother in Israel and I am one of many rising up and calling her blessed.

If you haven’t ever read a biography of the Schaeffer’s, let me suggest that you do so now. Francis and Edith Schaeffer by L.G. Parkhurst is written for a young audience and is just $3.99 for Kindle; so too is the Bite-Size Biography by Mostyn Roberts. Colin Duriez’s Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life is an excellent longer work.

You can read Frank Schaeffer’s farewell to his mother here.

The pro-life movement is filled with millions of people who truly care a lot about unborn babies. Take a look at this editorial cartoon.

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

Related posts:

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

E P I S O D E 1 0   Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 8 “The Age of Fragmentation” (Schaeffer Sundays)

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Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 4 “The Reformation” (Schaeffer Sundays)

Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]

“Schaeffer Sundays” Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance”

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 2 “The Middle Ages” (Schaeffer Sundays)

  Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 1 “The Roman Age” (Schaeffer Sundays)

Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE   Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]

April 30, 2013 – 6:08 am Categories: Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Post a comment

A suggestion to cut some wasteful spending out of the government Part 4 (includes editorial cartoon)

What Are the Dangers of Too Much Debt?

Published on Mar 20, 2012

Interest payments on U.S. government debt are three times spending in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars already, and that is with the lowest interest rate we have seen since the 1960s. A rise in interest rates would increase interest payments dramatically. What can the U.S. government do today to prevent a crisis from happening when interest rates go up?

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We got to cut wasteful spending out of the government and here is another fine suggestion from the Heritage Foundation.

Todd Thurman

March 12, 2013 at 5:40 pm

Newscom

The massive spending bill, or continuing resolution, released by the Senate this week continues spending on programs which are inappropriate or wasteful and fails to adopt good policies in many areas. Here’s a rundown of some of the worst offenders in the Senate bill:

Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Unlike the budget passed by the House, the Senate bill seeks to restore government spending to fund the failed CPSC product safety database. CPSC decision making with respect to the database has previously been called “arbitrary and capricious” by the courts.

Since it was implemented in 2011, manufacturers have shown that the CPSC database is seriously flawed. The database allows the public to submit unproven claims of harm with the CPSC and gives manufacturers only 10 days to challenge these claims; however, the CPSC itself has final authority to publish reports of such claims, even if they are disproved by the manufacturer. The accuracy of the CPSC reports is thus seriously questionable, and is a one-stop shop for tort lawyers seeking new clients or seeking “evidence” for their current lawsuits.

Furthermore, last October, in Company Doe v. Inez Tenenbaum, a federal court in Maryland overturned a decision of the CPSC to publish a report as “arbitrary and capricious,” because the CPSC report was “misleading and fail[ed] to relate[] to the [manufacturer’s] product in any way.” Indeed, the CPSC database is a concrete example of government waste: It is a shame that the Senate bill seeks to restore government spending to publishing misleading claims that damage business growth and likely lead to additional frivolous lawsuits.

—Andrew Kloster, Legal Fellow

The third-most viewed post in the history of this blog, with more than 22,000 views, is this set of cartoons showing how the welfare state begins and how it ends.

A similar theme can be found in this great new cartoon from Chuck Asay.

And just in case you think Asay is being unfair, keep in mind that folks like Obama and Pelosi actually have claimed that more unemployment benefits is “stimulus.” Yes, you read correctly. Subsidizing unemployment is good for growth to these strange ideologues.

Asay’s cartoon is so good that it may dethrone my previous top choice. Though sometimes I am most impressed by this one showing why parasites shouldn’t kill their host animal.

I’d be curious to know which one all of you think is most effective.

And since Asay’s work is almost always worth sharing, you can find more of my top picks here, here, here, and here.

April 30, 2013 – 6:00 am Categories: Current Events, spending out of control | Post a comment

The Way of Discovery: A Personal Journey of Faith Henry F. Schaefer III

The Way of Discovery: A Personal Journey of Faith  Henry F. Schaefer III

The Scientific Age

Uploaded by  on Oct 3, 2011

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Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason

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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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There are many people of low intelligence  and many brilliant persons who do not put there faith in Christ and many others that do!!!! One of the brilliant believers is Dr. Henry F. Schaefer III and he tells his story below.

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 Henry F. Schaefer III 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

The Way of Discovery: A Personal Journey of Faith

Henry F. Schaefer III

Professor Henry F. (Fritz) Schaefer is one of the most distinguished physical scientists in the world.  The U.S. News and World Report cover story of December 23, 1991 speculated that Professor Schaefer is a “five time nominee for the Nobel Prize.” He has received four of the most prestigious awards of the American Chemical Society, as well as the most highly esteemed award (the Centenary Medal) given to a non-British subject by London’s Royal Society of Chemistry. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Moreover, his general interest lectures on science and religion have riveted large audiences in nearly all the major universities in the U.S.A. and in Beijing, Berlin, Budapest, Calcutta, Cape Town, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, Paris, Prague, Sarajevo, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Sofia, St. Petersburg, Sydney, Tokyo, Warsaw, Zagreb, and Zürich.

For 18 years Dr. Schaefer was a faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley, where he remains Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus. Since 1987 Dr. Schaefer has been Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Center for Computational Chemistry at the University of Georgia.

 

I would like to take as my theme the title of a book by Michael Polanyi entitled The Way of Discovery. Polanyi was a well–known physical chemist in England who later became even better known as a philosopher. In The Way of Discovery, he makes the point that scientists are not robots, mechanically filling up notebooks with data and coming to inevitable conclusions. To put it another way, science is not just an exercise in advanced logical positivism.

Rather, Polanyi argues, there is much of the artist in the good scientist, and he or she approaches the laboratory with a wealth of presuppositions and intuitions about how things should be.

I can confirm Polanyi’s thesis with an example from my own research. In 1978, one of the most distinguished organic chemists in the world suggested that it was just a matter of time before someone would make the cyclopropyne molecule. Since cyclopropyne would contain a carbon–carbon triple bond in a three–membered ring, my own chemical intuition was very skeptical about such a suggestion. Guided by this presupposition, we were able to demonstrate that cyclopropyne does not involve a triple bond.

One can find pieces of Polanyi’s thesis scattered throughout the philosophy of science. For example, Albert Einstein wrote in 1938 that, “Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the physical world.” So intuition and presupposition in science are by no means harmful, as long as they are continually refined in the dialogue with observation.

The Way of Discovery

Intuition and presupposition are necessary ingredients to discovery. I am a theoretical chemist by profession. Prior to my first involvement with Freshman Chemistry ten years ago, I had spent most of my time as a professor doing research in theoretical chemistry. My research consists of using mathematical equations and computers to understand the electronic structure of molecules. More specifically, we attempt to predict the shapes of molecules, their energetics, their spectra, and how they react with other molecules.

As Polanyi points out, the real excitement of science is the excitement of discovery—to observe things that no human being has ever seen, to discover a new and potentially important molecule or a new type of chemical reaction. If you were to ask the average Ph.D. chemist what Professor Henry Schaefer’s most important discovery was, he or she would probably say “the structure of methylene.”

From time to time, people actually do ask me “What is your most important discovery?” And I respond that the most important discovery in my life occurred during my fourth year on the faculty at Berkeley. This was not a time of professional turbulence in my life. Although I was still an assistant professor, I had been told that the chemistry department was going to recommend my promotion to tenure. Nor was it a time of personal turbulence, since I had already been married for seven years to the most wonderful woman in the world. At the time of this discovery, my students and I were doing some very interesting theoretical work on the identification of the interstellar molecules hydrogen isocyanide and protonated carbon monoxide.

Some Personal Discoveries

However, the most important discovery of my life was my discovery of Jesus Christ. In 1973, I discovered the Jesus Christ of history, the Jesus whose life is described on the pages of the New Testament.

The Jesus I discovered 20 years ago was rather different from the one I had heard of as a boy in church. That Jesus was a well–intentioned, infinitely tolerant person who laid down some simple moral rules which all religions now embrace. The real Jesus bore some resemblance to the Jesus of my youth, but not very much. In particular the real Jesus sharply challenged the religious leaders of His time. And He claimed to be the only way to establish the relationship with God for which we were originally created, stating that all who claimed otherwise were thieves, robbers, and false prophets. The real Jesus was a very controversial person.

I discovered that on a Sunday morning 1,960 years ago that Jesus rose physically from the dead. I discovered that the resurrection of Jesus is not only historically true, but that it’s one of the best–attested facts in all of ancient history. If you haven’t made this discovery yet, I would strongly encourage you to examine the evidence carefully. A good summary of the evidence for the resurrection is given in Frank Morrison’s book, Who Moved the Stone?

I discovered that when the apostles spoke of Jesus being the Son of God, they didn’t mean that God was His Father in some vague and undefinable way. Jesus’ closest companions meant that He was God the Son. Jesus Christ, the carpenter from Nazareth, was and is God almighty.

I discovered that I could know for certain that I have a relationship with God forever. Now this may strike some of you as a terribly arrogant statement. And it would be if it were based on anything I had done. But I’m going to spend eternity in relationship with God because Jesus died on the cross for my rebelliousness and disobedience. It is not because of anything I’ve done, but in spite of everything I’ve done.

I discovered that the New Testament is a reliable historical document. When I became a Christian 12 years ago, I wasn’t sure of this, but a book by the British classics scholar F.F. Bruce changed my thinking in this regard. And as time went by I came to have a deep respect for the Old Testament as well, because I discovered that Jesus spoke personally of its authenticity. I want to emphasize here that a belief in the complete truthfulness of the Bible need not carry with it a wooden or unnaturally literalistic understanding of every verse. To quote a statement of faith that I like very much,

We affirm that God in His work of inspiration (of the Bible, that is) utilized the distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers who He had chosen and prepared.

In this context, my personal opinion is that the universe is probably 15–20 billion years old. I am convinced that such a view is completely consistent with the teaching of the first chapter of Genesis. For those of you who want to go into this matter in depth, I recommend James Montgomery Boice’s commentary on the first eleven chapters of Genesis.

I discovered that I could share my new–found faith in Jesus Christ with friends and with strangers. I discovered that most of the questions that people have about Christianity boil down to about ten distinct questions, and that there are intellectually sound answers to all ten.

One of my most interesting experiences occurred about 15 years ago. My wife, Karen, and I went with a friend to a visit a husband and wife who had visited our church. We should have expected something unusual because this couple was only about 25 years old and they lived in a $250,000 house. Furthermore, the man who answered the door was about 6’8″ tall. As we sat around getting acquainted, I asked Tom where he and Susie had moved from, to find that they had just moved up from Los Angeles. When I asked what kind of work Tom did, he replied that he was in professional sports. I was still oblivious to all this and so was Karen, but fortunately the third member of our party recognized that we were talking to the starting forward for the Golden State Warriors [professional basketball team] and blurted out, “Oh, so you’re that Tom Abernathy!” The best part of that evening was the ending. An hour after that awkward introduction, Tom and Susie Abernathy received Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.

I discovered that there is no problem too heavy for Jesus. Fourteen years ago, I spent several months at the University of Texas. On a Sunday morning (December 9, 1979, to be exact) I had just returned from church and was tidying up a few things in my office in Austin. My wife called and told me that our five–month old son Pierre had just died of crib death, or sudden infant death syndrome. Whatever illusion I had that life was just a bowl of cherries disappeared forever in that instant of time. Without going into the details, I can stand here tonight and tell you that never before nor since have I been so overwhelmed with the certainty of the love of my heavenly Father. There is no problem in your life that Jesus can’t bring you through.

I discovered that life with Jesus begins at the moment of conversion, [through] death, and then on to eternity. Jesus isn’t only interested in extracting a prayer of submission from me. He wants to change my whole life. That’s a tremendous challenge.

Finally, I discovered that the intellectual challenge to fully understand the depths of the Christian faith is quite comparable to that required to plumb the depths of molecular quantum mechanics. I’ve been at it in earnest for over twenty years and haven’t come close to exhausting the wealth of 20th century Christian intellectual writing. Almost anything written by C.S. Lewis is good—my advice is to read it all.

If you want to understand existentialism, read Francis Schaeffer. A book to start with is, The God Who Is There. If you like biography and history, as I do, read Arnold Dallimore’s two volumes on the great evangelist George Whitefield. I’ve read a lot of biographies and Dallimore’s Whitefield is the best. If you want to concentrate on Bible Study and have gone through the lighter commentaries, check out Martin Lloyd–Jones’ eight volumes on the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Lloyd–Jones speaks with authority to both the intellect and the heart. And finally, if your passion is theology, make an investment in Carl F. H. Henry’s six volumes of God, Revelation, and Authority. I think Carl Henry is the most outstanding theologian of this generation. His wisdom overflows each of these volumes.

I don’t want to leave without reminding you that there are many spiritual counterfeits today. If you don’t have a church of your own, look for one that is centered on Jesus Christ and based on the Bible.

I’d like to close this message with a series of four questions that Francis Schaeffer asked a young woman who had come to Switzerland searching for truth:

  1. First, he asked her, first, did she believe that God existed—God as clearly revealed in the Bible, who is infinite and yet can be know personally?
  2. Second, did she recognize that she was a sinner in light of God’s standards?
  3. Third, did she believe that Jesus Christ truly came in space, time, and history?
  4. And fourth, would she bow to Him and accept what He, Christ, did for her individually by taking her deserved punishment on the cross?

Copyright © 2001 by Henry F. Schaefer III. All rights reserved.

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April 30, 2013 – 1:29 am Categories: Francis Schaeffer | Post a comment

Open letter to President Obama (Part 307)

2 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton

(Mailed before Oct 1, 2012.)

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.

Evangelical leader Ken Ham rightly has noted, “Most of the founding fathers of this nation … built the worldview of this nation on the authority of the Word of God.” I strongly agree with this statement by Ham.

Dr. Michael Davis of California has asserted that he has no doubts that our President is a professing Christian, but his policies are those of a secular humanist. I share these same views. However, our founding fathers were anything but secular humanists in their views. John Adams actually wrote in a letter, “There is no authority, civil or religious – there can be no legitimate government – but that which is administered by this Holy Ghost.”

In June of 2011 David Barton of Wallbuilders wrote the article, “John Adams: Was He Really an Enemy of Christians?Addressing Modern Academic Shallowness,” and I wanted to share portions of that article with you.


 At WallBuilders, we are truly blessed by God, owning tens of thousands of original documents from the American Founding – documents clearly demonstrating the Christian and Biblical foundations both of America and of so many of her Founding Fathers and early statesmen. We frequently postoriginal documents on our website so that others may enjoy them and learn more about many important aspects of America’s rich moral, religious, and constitutional heritage that are widely unknown or misportrayed today.

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Modernism is the practice of analyzing historical incidents and persons as if they lived now rather than in the past. Modernism separates history from its context and setting – a practice that regularly produces flawed conclusions.

An illustration of Modernism is the manner in which today’s textbooks uniformly portray the colonial Puritans as intolerant Christians because of the witch trials in which twenty-seven individuals died. 5 But universally ignored is the fact that witch trials were occurring across the world at that time, not just in America; and in Europe alone, 500,000 were put to death, 6 including 30,000 in England, 75,000 in France, and 100,000 in Germany. 7 Additionally, the American witch trials lasted two months, but the European trials lasted for years. 8 Furthermore, the Massachusetts witch trials were brought to a close when Christian leaders such as the Rev. John Wise, the Rev. Increase Mather, and Thomas Brattle challenged the trials because Biblical rules of evidence and Due Process were not being followed in the courts. 9Consequently:

The trials were stopped by Governor Phipps in October, 1692, and five years later the Massachusetts Court publicly repented and set apart a special day of fasting and prayer, that prayers might be offered, asking for forgiveness for “the late tragedy raised amongst us by Satan,” while the twelve jurors published a declaration of sorrow for accepting insufficient evidence against the accused, and Judge Sewall rose in his pew in the South Church and made public confession of his sense of guilt.10

This is no attempt to defend the inexcusable twenty-seven deaths, but it is undeniable that the so-called “intolerant” conduct of the Puritans was light-years ahead of their “enlightened” contemporaries throughout the rest of the “civilized” Old World of Europe. As early church historian Charles Galloway affirmed, when the Puritans “are compared to their brothers in England and all Europe, they stand out as reformers of the most advanced and majestic type.” 11 To accurately portray historic events and individuals (whether it is the Puritans or John Adams), their words and actions must be measured not by today’s thinking and customs but rather in light of what was occurring in their own times – which is what Pinto does not do.

Let’s begin by looking at the extended portion of the letter that Pinto claims contains Adams’ alleged blasphemy against the Holy Spirit:

The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in this Earth. Not a baptism, not a marriage, not a sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost, Who is transmitted from age to age by laying the hands of the Bishop on the heads of candidates for the ministry. In the same manner, as the Holy Ghost is transmitted from monarch to monarch by the holy oil in the vial at Rheims which was brought down from Heaven by a dove and by that other phial [vial] which I have seen in the Tower of London. There is no authority civil or religious, there can be no legitimate government but what is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it. All without it is rebellion and perdition, or in more orthodox words, damnation. Although this is all artifice and cunning in the sacred original in the heart, yet they all believe it so sincerely that they would lay down their lives under the ax or the fiery fagot [bundle of wood used for burning individuals at the stake] for it. Alas, the poor weak ignorant dupe, human nature. There is so much king craft, priest craft, gentlemens craft, peoples craft, doctors craft, lawyers craft, merchants craft, tradesmens craft, laborers craft, and Devils craft in the world that it seems a desperate [hopeless] and impractical project to undeceive it. Do you wonder that Voltaire and Paine have made proselytes [converts]? Yet there [is] near as much subtlety, craft, and hypocrisy in Voltaire and Paine, and more, too, than in Ignatius Loyola [a Spanish knight who was a founder of the Jesuits]. 12

Recall from above that in Pinto’s analysis of this section he claims that Adams . . .

was mocking the idea of “Holy Ghost authority” and called Christians “dupes” for believing in it. . . . Adams was not speaking in approval of the Holy Ghost, but was rather mocking the idea of it and of the faith of true Christians. . . . Adams did not believe the Holy Ghost was real, and he spoke about it in what can only be called insulting and irreverent terms. 13

Is Pinto correct? Was Adams mocking Christians and the Holy Ghost? Absolutely not – which will be irrefutably proved below. But the fact that Pinto believes that Adams is insulting Christians and the Holy Spirit demonstrates not only that he employed Modernism but also the second device of historical malpractice: Minimalism.

5. Of the 27, 14 women and 5 men were tried, found guilty and hung; 1 man was tortured to death by crushing because he refused to cooperate with the court and answer their questions. To persuade him to talk they took him to a field and put a board on him with rocks, they increased the number of rocks until he would cooperate but he continued to refuse and was crushed to death. He was therefore never convicted but he is considered the 20th victim as he was on trial for being a wizard. And 7 individuals died in prison awaiting trial; one was a baby in prison with her mother, who was awaiting trial as a witch. Salem Witch Museum, January 13, 2011 (at:http://www.salemwitchmuseum.com/education/index.shtml) per the museum’s Department of Education. (Return)

6. William Warren Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), p. 61. (Return)

7. Charles B. Galloway, Christianity and the American Commonwealth (Nashville: Publishing House Methodist Episcopal Church, 1898), p. 110.(Return)

8. Charles B. Galloway, Christianity and the American Commonwealth (Nashville: Publishing House Methodist Episcopal Church, 1898), p. 110.(Return)

9. Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Mather, Increase” and “Brattle, Thomas.” See also “The Salem Witch Trials: Reason Returns,” Court TV: Crime Library (at:http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/not_guilty/salem_witches/12.html?sect=12) (accessed on February 3, 2011). (Return)

10. William Warren Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1950), p. 62. (Return)

11. Charles B. Galloway, Christianity and the American Commonwealth (Nashville: Publishing House Methodist Episcopal Church, 1898), p. 90.(Return)

12. John Adams letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush on December 21, 1809, from an original in our possession (see original at:http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=59755). (Return)

13. Chris Pinto, “David Barton Approves of Sharia Law in America and Misleads Jon Stewart?, Worldview Times, April 10, 2011 (at:http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-times/article.php?articleid=7153). (Return)

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

April 30, 2013 – 1:13 am Categories: David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Post a comment