MAINLINE CHURCHES: FROM PEWS TO CONDOS
JUNE 27, 2015
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13 CONTENTS.indd 2 6/10/15 8:50 AM JUN27/ 15/ VOLUME 30 NUMBER 13
COVER STORY Mmmm … four books of the year A committee of WORLD writers chose these books, spread among four categories, that should be “chewed and digested” Our favorite genre Readable and insightful history books from the past months Spreading the words A Taiwanese publishing group is on the lookout for Reformed books to translate into Chinese
FEATURES DEPARTMENTS Church, Inc. Joel Belz As the American church becomes more evangelical, DISPATCHES mainline denominations News Human Race with empty buildings enter Quotables the real estate business Quick Takes
ON THE Janie B. Cheaney COVER Photo by CULTURE Matt Rose Movies & TV Background photo Books by HATCH_TK/ Q&A iStock Music Mindy Belz NOTEBOOK Science Technology WORLD (ISSN 0888-157X) (USPS 763-010) is Sports published biweekly (26 issues) for $59.95 per Houses of God year by God’s World Publications, (no mail) 12 All Souls Crescent, Asheville, NC 28803; Religion 828.232.5260. Periodical postage paid at Asheville, NC, and additional mailing off ices. Mailbag Printed in the USA. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Andrée Seu © 2015 WORLD News Group. All rights reserved. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Peterson WORLD, PO Box 20002, Asheville, NC 28802-9998. Marvin Olasky
g Visit our website—wng.org—for breaking news and more JUNE 27, 2015 WORLD 3
13 CONTENTS.indd 3 6/10/15 9:42 AM “The earth is the L ’s and the fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein.” For your tablet —P :
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13 CONTENTS.indd 4 6/10/15 8:28 AM Brand Wedding World 6.15.indd 1 5/13/15 10:05:31 AM 13 CONTENTS.indd 5 6/8/15 9:44 AM Joel Belz “Which of these three,” Jesus memorably summarized after telling the story of the good Samaritan, “proved to be a real neighbor?” In that brief, pithy query—as at so many other times in His teaching—Jesus both surprised His listeners and stretched their understanding to brand-new levels. Again and again, He managed The question looms to go right to the heart of a matter by springing on His listeners an unexpected question that I haven’t yet heard a good answer to summarized the whole matter. the Baker’s challenge My goal three columns back was to explore together our aptitude to imitate Jesus’ remark- able rhetoric. Might we find My, how you readers took me seriously some collective ability to R just three issues back. Imagine, I chal- speak the truth about homo- lenged you in our May 16 edition to pretend sexuals and marriage—and that you are the owner/operator of a neighbor- still to demonstrate at the hood bakery (see “Taking the baker’s challenge,” very same time a winsome May 16). In walks a homosexual couple, asking spirit? you to prepare a cake for their wedding coming When I tell you bluntly up a month from now. that you have so far flunked Then I made my challenge very specific. I my test, I hope you’ll hear was interested, to be sure, to get a sense of that judgment against the how WORLD’s readers might line up into backdrop of my own prior opposing camps on such a volatile issue. But failure. I’d been trying for that was secondary. My main goal was to several weeks myself to discover whether we, as a group, might come propose a model of a pene- up with some winsome rhetoric for delivering trating question that would what was likely to be a negative message. I dazzle and silence (and specifically asked you all to follow the pattern ultimately help) the would- Jesus used so often in His public ministry. be cake buyers. Only after Make your point, I said, by asking a pertinent puzzling unsuccessfully for question designed to help clarify the issue. Conservative some time over that self-inflicted assignment And I added: “No smart-aleck put-downs. No did I pass it on in my column to all of you. insults.” evangelicals So, after the fact, here’s my sense of things. By June 4, I received more than 200 replies don’t by any I failed my own test repeatedly, unable to to that invitation—the biggest response I’ve means agree address the issue with something memorable, received to any column since WORLD’s first clever, or pointed. So I turned to you for help— issue almost 30 years ago. About 165 of the on what the but even with more than 200 submissions, you replies came by email, the rest by traditional baker’s basic too missed the mark. You’d be embarrassed by mail. They came from all over the United States. response some of what was suggested. The proposals At least five came from readers who are impris- were full of put-downs and self-defensiveness. oned and apparently have a little extra time to should be. Part of the problem is that we conservative devote to puzzlers of this kind. evangelicals don’t by any means agree on what You took me, I must tell you, somewhat too the baker’s basic response should be. Should he seriously—even while a great number of you make and sell the cake—or should he exercise ignored my most important assignment! I his rights and say no? Should he, as a surprising thought I suggested that brevity would be a vir- number of you proposed, make the cake and tue in framing such a question. But fully a third hand it back to his customers as a gift? of you filled two or even three pages with your Or is there, I can’t help wondering, still eloquent arguments on one side or the other of some way to summarize this whole dilemma in the baker’s choice. And typically, the question the form of a pointed, good-spirited, helpful
I’d asked for was either nowhere to be found, or question that we might all memorize and tuck S buried so far in your prose that its force was away for use when we’re surprised by the uper S
totally lost. events of some future day? A tock
6 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015 [email protected]
13 JOEL.indd 6 6/10/15 8:56 AM 6/5/15 4:48 PM 12/5/14 6:40 AM
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CREDIT 13 NEWS.indd 8 6/8/15 9:46AM
CREDIT DISPATCHES NEWS / HUMAN RACE / QUOTABLES / QUICK TAKES
JUNE 6 HORSE KING A Thoroughbred named American Pharoah made history and carried horse racing into the limelight when it jumped across the fi nish line in fi rst place at the Belmont Stakes in Elmont, N.Y., nabbing the sport’s fi rst Triple Crown in decades. The last horse to win all three races in the Triple Crown series—the Belmont Stakes, the Kentucky Derby, and the Preakness Stakes—was Aff irmed, in 1978. The horse’s name was misspelled during registration (it should have been “Pharaoh”).
JON DURR/ESW/CSM (CAL SPORT MEDIA) VIA AP
g Visit our website—wng.org—for breaking news and more JUNE 27, 2015 WORLD 9
13 NEWS.indd 9 6/10/15 9:00 AM DISPATCHES NEWS
June 2 Sky spying Dozens of small, nondescript Cessna aircraft that sometimes fly in circles above U.S. cities are actually FBI surveillance planes, the Associated Press said in a report. Over the course of a month the AP identified at least 50 of the planes, which often flew in unusual counterclockwise patterns above such cities as Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, and Washington, D.C. The planes, registered with fake companies, carry surveillance cameras and occasionally technology to track cell phones on the ground. The FBI has used the spy planes to support its ground operations since at least the 1980s, but has kept them quiet. The Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Marshals Service have similar programs. PLANE: A PLANE: June 5
Cruise and n dr e calamity w H a
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10 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015 Download WORLD’s iPad app today; details at wng.org/iPad
13 NEWS.indd 10 g Visit our website—wng.org—for breaking news and more6/10/15 9:03 AM Download WORLD’s iPad app today; details at wng.org/iPad d Listen to WORLD on the radio at worldandeverything.com Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter: @WORLD_mag PLANE: ANDREW HARNIK/AP • SHIP: CHINATOPIX VIA AP • BLATTER: ENNIO LEANZA/KEYSTONE VIA AP VIA LEANZA/KEYSTONE ENNIO • BLATTER: AP VIA CHINATOPIX • SHIP: HARNIK/AP ANDREW PLANE:
JUNE 2 STEPPING DOWN Joseph “Sepp” Blatter announced his pending resignation as president of FIFA, international soccer’s governing body, just four days after his reelection to a fi fth term—and just six days after U.S. investigators indicted nine current and former FIFA off icials for alleged involvement in a long-running scheme of fraud and money laundering. The U.S. Justice Department said FIFA off i- cials awarded soccer marketing rights in exchange for bribes and kickbacks worth over $150 million, and took bribes to cast votes allowing South Africa to host the 2010 World Cup. In a separate probe, Swiss off icials were investigating whether Russia and Qatar fairly won their bids to host the World Cup in 2018 and 2022. Blatter was not among those indicted but served as FIFA president throughout the time of the alleged corruption.
13 NEWS.indd 11 6/10/15 9:04 AM 13 NEWS.indd 12 DISPATCHES L 5. June India southern in arrived finally crops, quench and air the cool to needed rains, monsoon Delayed heat. indoor stifling avoid to roofs took some their and to conditioning, air without went Indians most meant electricity nonexistent or Unreliable degrees 118 to temperatures driving June, early to mid-April from India on descended wave heat A scorching May ethal 29 Fahrenheit, NEWS
heat melting
asphalt roads, and causing 2,500 deaths from dehydration and heatstroke.
6/10/15 9:05AM
T DI E R C
INDIA: Sanjay Kanojia/AFP/Getty Images • BOSTON: Steven Senne/AP • HASTERT: Scott Olson/Getty Images June 2 Shot in Boston Boston police and FBI investiga- tors shot and killed a black Muslim man, Usaama Rahim, who they said lunged at them with a foot-long, military-style knife after they tried to question him. Rahim, 26, had been under FBI surveillance for allegedly plan- ning to carry out a jihadi attack. Hours before his death, investi- gators said Rahim told his nephew, David Wright, in a secretly recorded phone call that he planned to “go after them, those boys in blue … ’cause it’s the easiest target,” a reference to police officers. Police later arrested Wright at his Everett, Mass., home. s e ag m /Getty I n
o May 28 s l O Hastert accused A federal grand jury indicted : Scott T R former U.S. House Speaker TE J. Dennis Hastert, 73, on charges of lying to FBI agents and making
e/AP • HAS illegal payments to keep an nn undisclosed person quiet about Se n “prior misconduct” by Hastert. The indictment claimed Hastert,
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Follow us on Facebook JUNE 27, 2015 WORLD 13
13 gNEWS.indd Visit our 13website—wng.org—for breaking news and more 6/10/15 9:07 AM Download WORLD’s iPad app today; details at wng.org/iPad d Listen to WORLD on the radio at worldandeverything.com Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter: @WORLD_mag JAWS: HANDOUT • BRADY: GREGORY PAYAN/AP • APPLE WATCH: REX FEATURES VIA AP IMAGES • CAMOUFLAGE: HANDOUT • FOURTH OF JULY: SUSAN CHIANG/ISTOCK SUSAN JULY: OF FOURTH • HANDOUT CAMOUFLAGE: • IMAGES AP VIA FEATURES REX WATCH: APPLE • PAYAN/AP GREGORY BRADY: • HANDOUT JAWS:
MALAYSIA: XINHUA/LANDOV • SOUTH KOREA: CHUNG SUNG-JUN/GETTY IMAGES • MEXICO: MARCO UGARTE/AP 6/10/15 10:07 AM Follow us on Facebook At least 16 climbers died Follow us on Twitter: @WORLD_mag More than 2,000 schools closed MALAYSIA after a strong earthquake shook the country’s highest peak, 13,435-foot Mount Kinabalu, and buried trekking routes with rocks and boulders. KOREA Listen to WORLD on the radio at worldandeverything.com Listen to WORLD on the radio at worldandeverything.com Visit our website—wng.org—for breaking news and more
SOUTH due to an outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS. By June 9 the country had logged 95 cases and seven deaths. Download WORLD’s iPad app today; details at wng.org/iPad g d d globe the More than 3,000ed into Syrians Turkey fl Three-quarters of the Yemeni TURKEY over two days in early June,ghting escaping fi between Kurdish forces and ISIS and joining 1.7 million Syrian refugees in Turkey. population is in dire need of food, water, or medical supplies because of the country’s civil war and a Saudi-led naval blockade, the UN said. YEMEN Three gunmen stormed a The European Court of Human Rights AFGHANISTAN compound at night and killed nine Afghans working for People in Need, a Czech charity. Militants have killed 26 aid workers this year. Around FRANCE ruled it was legal to remove a minimally conscious man’s feeding tube at the behest of hiswife and doctors, although his parents objected. The United Statesicially on May 29 off NEWS MORE NEWSMORE THE WEBSITE: OF WORLD OUR ON IS WNG.ORG CUBA removed Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terror, paving the way for both countries to re-establish mutual embassies. The wholesale JUNE 27, 2015
Mexicans voted in midterms on June 7, STATES WORLD
DISPATCHES MEXICO electingrst independent their fi governor and taking several legislative seats away from President Enrique Peña Nieto’s ruling party. UNITED price of eggs hit a record $2.62 per dozen due to a Midwest u outbreakecting 47bird aff fl million turkeys and chickens. 14 13 GLOBE+LA.indd 14 6/10/15 9:25 AM for Miller, SD 605.853.3071 GOD’S TRUTH ACADEMY TODAY’S YOUTH students in grades 8-12 Boarding is available for www.sunshinebible.org BIBLE SUNSHINE Sunshine Bible Academy exists to assist parents with raising their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord by integrating God’s truth into all areas of life. Comprehensive course offerings include fine arts, industrial arts, agri-science, world language and college credit options. Sunshine Bible Academy is a non-denominational evangelical school with committed, highly qualified faculty and staff. The U.S.
1 new camoufl age camoufl new design for fatiguestoday. The Army says it transitioning to a hopes to phase out Army will begin the old camoufl theage old camoufl Army units in combat uniforms the old camoufl theage old camoufl Army units in combat uniforms could be a mish- mash of designs. could be a mish- mash of designs. pattern by October 2018. Until then, pattern by October 2018. Until then, JULY 1 JULY JULY will return to Americanswill
Jaws 4 take in the festivities from the South Lawn of the White House where in the past he has President Barack Obama will hosted volleyball games for with BBQs and parades. military families, concerts, and celebrate the Fourth of July today the traditional fi the traditionalreworks display. fi Just in time for its 40th anniversary, JULY
ahead 21
encore presentation on June 24. encore presentation on June 24. theaters across the country. TCM will sponsor an theaters across the country. TCM will sponsor an Turner Classic Movies, will take place at 500 Turner Classic Movies, will take place at 500 theaters today. The limited release, sponsored by theaters today. The limited release, sponsored by classic Hollywood thriller classic Hollywood thriller JUNE 21 JUNE JUNE the day Apple expands will also mark watch sales in in sales watch Italy, Mexico, South Korea, Spain, and sales. June 26 Switzerland. through online online through through online online through
NFL Commissioner only been available only been available Tech giantTech Apple will
’s appeal’s of Brady’s four- picks due to thescandal. 23
26 Patriots earlier accepted a $1 Brady the AFC Championship Game.The ball defl ation scandalball defl that rocked million fi ne and a lossmillion of two fi draft Roger Goodell today will hear New England Patriots quarterback Tom game suspension for his role in the JUNE begin selling its new Apple Watch in stores today. In the weeks since its April release, the newest gadget has
JUNE LookingLooking ahead Download WORLD’s iPad app today; details at wng.org/iPad
JAWS: HANDOUT • BRADY: GREGORY PAYAN/AP • APPLE WATCH: REX FEATURES VIA AP IMAGES • CAMOUFLAGE: HANDOUT • FOURTH OF JULY: SUSAN CHIANG/ISTOCK SUSAN JULY: OF FOURTH • HANDOUT CAMOUFLAGE: • IMAGES AP VIA FEATURES REX WATCH: APPLE • PAYAN/AP GREGORY BRADY: • HANDOUT JAWS: 13 GLOBE+LA.indd 15
MALAYSIA: XINHUA/LANDOV • SOUTH KOREA: CHUNG SUNG-JUN/GETTY IMAGES • MEXICO: MARCO UGARTE/AP DISPATCHES NEWS ‘Favored treatment’ Supreme Court rules in favor of religious practice in the workplace by Emily Belz
The Supreme Court on June 1 R set a high bar for employers to accommodate religious practice in the workplace, siding with a Muslim woman who was denied employment over her hijab. The court ruled 8-1 that employers can’t claim ignorance as a way of avoiding accommodating reli- gious practice in the workplace. The ruling has already affected other similar cases and has implications for anyone practicing his or her beliefs in the workplace, such as Christians who don’t believe in working on Sundays. Evangelical, Muslim, Sikh, and Jewish groups filed an amicus brief together in the case, arguing on the woman’s behalf. Elauf outside the hardship.” The wrote. “Rather, it gives them favored “The law may not assume that people Supreme Court. almost unani- treatment, affirmatively obligating are irreligious unless proven otherwise, mous Supreme employers not ‘to fail or refuse to hire and it should not assume that the Court said the burden of accommoda- or discharge any individual … because workplace is a religion-free zone,” tion was on Abercrombie. The com- of such individual’s religious obser- wrote lawyers from the Becket Fund pany would violate Title VII as long as vance and practice.’” for Religious Liberty in a separate brief. not accommodating religious practice Justice Clarence Thomas was the In 2008, managers at an was part of the motive in not hiring only dissenting vote. Abercrombie & Fitch clothing store in someone. The ruling had immediate effect on Tulsa, Okla., denied Samantha Elauf, “An employer may not make an another religious employment case. then age 17, a job, despite Elauf’s applicant’s religious practice, con- Last summer in Nobach v. Woodland favorable scores in the application and firmed or otherwise, a factor in Village Nursing Center, the 5th Circuit interview process. The managers cited employment decisions,” wrote Justice had ruled against a Jehovah’s Witness her hijab in deciding against hiring Antonin Scalia in a short, tight opinion, employed at a nursing home who had her. Elauf is a practicing Muslim and coming in under seven pages. “[A]n been fired for refusing to pray the rosary her hijab, or headscarf, didn’t conform employer who acts with the motive of with a patient. The employee told her with Abercrombie’s dress code for avoiding accommodation may violate boss when she was fired that praying employees on the floor. But they didn’t Title VII even if he has no more than an the rosary was against her religion. ask her about it or try to work out an unsubstantiated suspicion that accom- The 5th Circuit ruled that Woodland Chip accommodation. modation would be needed.” wasn’t liable because the company Somode Under Title VII of the Civil Rights The court said religious practice has didn’t have sufficient knowledge of her Act, employers cannot discriminate in special protection under Title VII. religious objection. A week after the v hiring on the basis of religion, and they “Title VII does not demand mere EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch ruling the illa/G
are supposed to provide reasonable neutrality with regard to religious Supreme Court ordered the 5th Circuit etty accommodation of religious practice if practices—that they be treated no to reconsider the Woodland case in
I it doesn’t expose them to “undue worse than other practices,” Scalia light of Abercrombie. A ma g e s
16 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015 g Visit our website—wng.org—for breaking news and more
13 NEWS 1-PAGER.indd 16 g Visit our website—wng.org—for breaking news and more6/10/15 8:54 AM Download WORLD’s iPad app today; details at wng.org/iPad d Listen to WORLD on the radio at worldandeverything.com Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter: @WORLD_mag
DISPATCHES HUMAN RACE
Acquitted Eight people reportedly convicted in April for the 2012 shooting of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai weren’t convicted after all. Pakistani officials changed course on June 5, revealing only two suspects in fact received 25-year sentences, while the others were acquitted due to lack of evidence. The Taliban took responsibility for the attack on the then-15-year- old schoolgirl. The trial, held in secret, raised suspi- cion. Public prosecutor Sayed Naeem claims he was misquoted in April. The eight acquitted men’s whereabouts are unknown.
ANNOUNCED Rick Perry, the former 14-year governor of Texas, on June 4 announced his presidential candidacy Shot in Addison, Texas. “This will be a show-me-don’t-tell-me election where voters look past the Hartford, Conn., pastor p rhetoric to the real record,” he said, touting his experience dealing with border security and Augustus Sealy is recover- nfelt/a leading the nation’s top job-creating state. Perry’s 2012 presidential bid was unsaddled by gaffes, ing from three gunshot eise including during one debate in which he forgot the name of a government agency he hoped to wounds received outside H nn eliminate, but he says he’s better prepared in this campaign. First Church of the A Nazarene on May 24. The bullets shattered his femur as he arranged flags for a Evolving Memorial Day Sunday After what he said were “count- tradition. No suspect is in less hours of prayer, study, custody, but the family has conversation and emotional prayed for the person, wife turmoil” author and Eastern Sharon said. The drive-by University professor Tony shooting added to a wave v • Cortés: Bradley C. Bower • Biden: ando Perry: Perry:
Campolo released a statement of violence Hartford has L / on June 8 endorsing same-sex experienced in recent TNS / R E
marriage and saying the church weeks, mirroring other Jen on SKEN should accept unrepentant “gay troubled cities. Holiday E kins/Getty kins/Getty Christian couples who have weekend shootings G made a lifetime commitment to wounded or killed at least EOR h: G one another.” He compared 108 people in Chicago, c I ma
opposition to same-sex mar- Baltimore, and New York. g es • Cam es
riage in the church to Christians dist Chur
in the past who supported slav- etho p M olo: h olo: ery. David Neff, former editor of SETTLED d nite
Christianity Today, posted a andout U Facebook message supporting Unmarried lesbian part- loma
Campolo’s new position. ners Jaclyn Pfeiffer and A
18 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015 Follow us on Twitter: @WORLD_mag
13 HUMAN RACE.indd 18 g Visit our website—wng.org—for breaking news and6/10/15 more 12:04 PM Download WORLD’s iPad app today; details at wng.org/iPad d Listen to WORLD on the radio at worldandeverything.com Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter: @WORLD_mag By the numbers Kelly Bardier will receive $28,476 from a Florida 68.4 The church over a dispute as number of minutes employees of the church’s Americans spend day care. The couple traveling each day, per threatened to sue Aloma capita, according to United Methodist Church the Bureau of Labor under a county ordinance, Statistics. The number is down from 74.4 claiming they were fired, minutes in 2003. while the church maintains they quit. The United Methodist Church accepts $15.6 churches on both sides of billion the question of whether The amount of money homosexuality is sinful, Quebec Justice Brian and Aloma said the couple Riordan ruled three was simply in a sexual rela- tobacco companies Beau Biden tionship while unmarried, must pay to more than which remains discouraged 1 million smokers in in the UMC. But LGBT- hearings, Cortés offered to Resigned Quebec who have affirming Florida bishop take a lie detector test to become ill from Ken Carter chastised prove he had no knowledge Rick Estridge, vice presi- tobacco use or say Aloma and prompted the of Gosnell, which included dent for overseas finance they can’t quit smok- church to settle on May 18. malpractice complaints at Catholic Relief Services ing. The companies said they would The church will meet with and a woman’s death from (CRS), resigned June 3 appeal the ruling. gay rights groups. a perforated womb. The over criticism of his Gosnell grand jury accused same-sex relationship. p the department, including He worked for CRS for 16 4.36 The aver- elt/a during Cortés’ tenure, years. But in April, activ- age rainfall, in inches, of willfully ignoring ists published his 2013
eisenf for the contiguous H accusations. same-sex marriage United States in May, nn A license, including his the country’s wettest address, along with month since record Facebook advocacy of keeping began in 1895. Died LGBT issues. CRS con- Beau Biden, Vice President demned the manner in Joe Biden’s 46-year-old which much criticism son, died of brain cancer came, saying it hurt the the earthquake-ravaged May 30. The father could church’s mission to the nation. As many as rtés: Bradley C. Bower • Biden: not hide his grief as suffering. Estridge wasn’t 15,000 women and chil- hundreds came to mourn in a ministerial role, CRS dren are targeted every
andov • Co Confirmed Perry: Perry:
L around his son’s flag- said, defending his year in the Himalayan / After a four-month wait, draped casket. Beau Biden employment and thanking nation, but the risk has TNS / R on Jenki on the Pennsylvania Senate served in the Delaware him for “faithful service increased this year with SKENE confirmed Pedro Cortés National Guard and did a to CRS’ mission.” many displaced. E G ns/Getty ns/Getty June 2 as Gov. Tom Wolf’s tour of duty in Iraq. He was Families who lost liveli- EOR secretary of state. Cortés also Delaware’s attorney hoods now face traffick- h: G c held the same post from general and planned to run ers promising jobs, I ma Trafficked
g 2003-2010, when for governor, even as his authorities say. Many es • Cam es st Chur his department cancer recurred this The price of a child in end up in South Asian
ethodi overlooked the spring. Biden’s first Nepal is $500 to human brothels and garment p M olo: han olo: crimes of wife and infant traffickers. So says Sam sweatshops. Indian
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d Listen to WORLD on the radio at worldandeverything.com JUNE 27, 2015 WORLD 19
13 HUMAN RACE.indd 19 6/10/15 11:54 AM DISPATCHES QUOTABLES
‘You live in la la land.’ House Oversight chairman JASON CHAFFETZ, ‘What most R-Utah, to the Justice Department’s FOIA concerns me chief, Melanie Ann Pustay, who defended is that they the agency rating itself a 5-out-of-5 for continue doing “proactive disclosure”—even though agency illegal things. FOIA backlogs have more than doubled under For example, the Obama administration. “We’re at the
graduating COLE/AP JIM • CHRISTIE: OSA/AP LA DE ENRIQUE • CASTRO: DURR/ESW/CSM/AP • ZAYAT: JON IMAGES MARTINEZ/GETTY RONALD • BUSH: IMAGES ANGERER/GETTY DREW CHAFFETZ: heart of why I think there’s a problem,” independent Chaff etz said during a hearing. journalists.’ “You all think you’re doing Cuban President RAUL a great job.” CASTRO on activities inside Washington’s U.S. Interests Section in Havana. Castro singled out as an obstacle to re-establishing diplomatic ties an American-sponsored educational course aimed at ‘You can’t teaching journalism to Cubans who want to develop wear pearls all independent media in Cuba. over your face.’ Former First Lady BARBARA BUSH in a 90th birthday interview with her granddaughter, Jenna Bush Hager. Bush said she started wearing pearls to “cover the wrinkles,” but “they no longer do.”
‘It’s now been ‘Sell your fi ve years since Common Core house; don’t was adopted, sell this horse.’ and the truth is Bloodstock agent JEFF SEDER, that it’s simply advising owner Ahmed Zayat not working.’ in 2013 not to sell American New Jersey Gov. and likely Pharoah, who won the presidential candidate Triple Crown on June 6 CHRIS CHRISTIE, suggesting (see p. 9). New Jersey could abandon the controversial national education standards.
20 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015 Follow us on Facebook
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Chaffetz: Drew Angerer/Getty Images • bush: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images • Zayat: Jon Durr/ESW/CSM/AP • castro: Enrique de la Osa/ap • Christie: Jim Cole/ap 13 QUICK TAKES.indd 22 featu 22 looped out phase would company the them told cials che Fayetteville, in gathered M to end an 3: June announced company the one like employees from ovation of kind the stores. individual to controls Walmart Beyond account for: for: account officials issued a residency permit for the fictional fictional the for permit residency a issued officials ore than 3 than ore DISPATCHES Celine skylin giant lizard best known for climbing the Tokyo Tokyo the climbing for known best lizard giant holdin to resident more one have officials city Tokyo offi Walmart when ered photos d photos ambass
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Thomas: Alex Vucha/The Woodstock Independent • Dayton: Michael Minasi/Conroe Courier/ap • chalkboard: Oklahoma City Public Schools bacon: Juanmonino/istock • illustration: kreig barrie BIEBER: MARK J. TERRILL/AP • DION: ASSOCIATED PRESS • ZANGERS: PHIL CARLSON/THE QUINCY HERALD-WHIG/AP • GODZILLA: THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN/AP • BEL AIR: DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES MORRIS/BLOOMBERG/GETTY PAUL DAVID AIR: BEL • SHIMBUN/AP YOMIURI THE GODZILLA: • HERALD-WHIG/AP QUINCY CARLSON/THE PHIL ZANGERS: • PRESS ASSOCIATED DION: • TERRILL/AP J. MARK BIEBER:
13 QUICK TAKES.indd 23 THOMAS: ALEX VUCHA/THE WOODSTOCK INDEPENDENT • DAYTON: MICHAEL MINASI/CONROE COURIER/AP • CHALKBOARD: OKLAHOMA CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS BACON: JUANMONINO/iSTOCK • ILLUSTRATION: KREIG BARRIE cities in June and July. and June in cities Indiana three in giveaways bacon-themed and ings off will tast- Pork bacon er Indiana group industry off ering, lottery new the To celebrate bacon. of supply supply a20-year a20-year win win to to possibility possibility the the as as well well as as $10,000 $10,000 to to up up prizes prizes cash cash receiving winners with ticket, and-sniff lottery scratch-off scratch- bacon-scented anew debuted Lottery Hoosier The buyers. ticket entice to it using by in cash to hope lottery Indiana the off with began, icials fad bacon the after Years Pork the told Kishore Sherry Principal anymore,” that of alot see don’t you because away, me blows penmanship “The past. city’s the from work chalk the preserve to way fi to plan city a nd the and district The music. and cleanliness, reading, writing, hand- pilgrims), the of drawings (with history math, in students and teachers from work included lessons 1917. The from lessons chalk preserved perfectly almost with chalkboards Older expecting: weren’t they chalkboards the behind something found they whiteboards, new for room make to Okla., City, Oklahoma in School High Emerson at chalkboards out taking began June early in workers When Lessons Oklahoman payo . “Some of the handwriting in some of these rooms is beautiful.” is rooms these of some in handwriting the of . “Some from
the past now covered in garage door bits, Thomas said he felt fulfi lled: “That was easy.” was fulfi “That felt he lled: said Thomas bits, door garage in covered now front the vehicle, the fl the from to pedal gas oor. Emerging the jammed and reverse, in Rodeo Isuzu borrowed the put helmet, acrash donned 90-year-old the 31, May on And crusher. the for bound acar located grandchildren the Next, replacement. needed that adoor with agarage found they First, aplan. hatched they grandchildren, his to fantasy the mentioned he When said. door,” he the through backing about Ithink garage, the of out Iback time “Every 31. May wish his got old 90-year- the shop, repair alocal and family his of help the with And door. agarage through acar drive to wanted He Walter Breaking Thomas family members and others, charging the cheer- the charging others, and members family family members and others, charging the cheer- the charging others, and members family the middle of graduation exercises. Days later, later, Days exercises. graduation of middle the the middle of graduation exercises. Days later, later, Days exercises. graduation of middle the ers with disturbing the peace. Each charged well- charged Each peace. the disturbing with ers ers with disturbing the peace. Each charged well- charged Each peace. the disturbing with ers (Miss.) High School’s graduation stage on May May on stage graduation School’s High (Miss.) (Miss.) High School’s graduation stage on May May on stage graduation School’s High (Miss.) at the direction of Superintendent Jay Foster, Foster, Jay Superintendent of direction the at at the direction of Superintendent Jay Foster, Foster, Jay Superintendent of direction the at Walker’s father, aunt, and two other rela- other two and aunt, Walker’s father, Walker’s father, aunt, and two other rela- other two and aunt, Walker’s father, ignoring the prohibition on loud cheering in in cheering loud on prohibition the ignoring ignoring the prohibition on loud cheering in in cheering loud on prohibition the ignoring wisher faces a $500 bond and a June 9 court date. 9court aJune and bond a$500 faces wisher wisher faces a $500 bond and a June 9 court date. 9court aJune and bond a$500 faces wisher of Woodstock, Ill., had a destructive dream: dream: adestructive had Ill., Woodstock, of police off icers issued arrest warrants on the the on warrants arrest issued off icers police police off icers issued arrest warrants on the the on warrants arrest issued off icers police When Lanarcia Walker crossed Senatobia Senatobia crossed Walker Lanarcia When tives were asked to leave the event for for event the leave to asked were tives tives were asked to leave the event for for event the leave to asked were tives 21, the senior’s family cheered loudly—too loudly—too cheered family senior’s the 21, 21, the senior’s family cheered loudly—too loudly—too cheered family senior’s the 21, loudly for some tastes. Moments later, later, Moments tastes. some for loudly loudly for some tastes. Moments later, later, Moments tastes. some for loudly and Costly cheers Costly exiting danger of fl ooding. Henscey moved his herd through through herd his moved fl of Henscey danger ooding. Dayton, Texas, where residents came out with lawn lawn with out came residents where Texas, Dayton, fl oodwaters, rancher Pat Henscey turned to a19th- to turned Henscey Pat rancher floodwaters, Liberty Bell Ranch herd will graze at a borrowed rail rail aborrowed at graze will herd Ranch Bell Liberty East Texas rancher saddled his horse, rounded up rounded horse, his saddled rancher Texas East century solution to save his cattle. On May 31, the the 31, May On cattle. his save to solution century some cowboys, and commenced an old-fashioned old-fashioned an commenced and cowboys, some chairs and treated the event like a parade. The The aparade. like event the treated and chairs Drenched by a month of heavy rains and rising rising and rains heavy of amonth by Drenched cattle drive to move his herd out of pasture in in pasture of out herd his move to drive cattle cheers Driven yard until fl subside. until yard oodwaters JUNE 27, 2015 2015 27, JUNE to drive WORLD
6/10/15 10:47AM 23 JANIE B. CHEANEY show like to point out how illustrative it is of human nature unconstrained by conscience, philosophy, or religion. But even faithful watchers sometimes complain that Game of Thrones goes too far. In the notorious “Red Wedding” scene of Season Three, a pregnant woman was stabbed repeatedly through the belly. This season’s “they went too far” episode Depravity in included the brutal rape of a character who had become a feminist icon. Novelist Martin defends the show with the such-is-life argument: “The our hearts true horrors of human history derive not from We can set our minds on what is true and orcs and Dark Lords, but from ourselves.” Not for nothing is he called the “anti-Tolkien.” honorable amid a pagan culture Though periodically an online reviewer or blogger will swear off the show forever, From 2005 to 2007, HBO ran a series and Christians advise other Christians R called Rome. It was the most elaborate to stop watching, the seasons roll on: and costly cable series produced up to that Five just concluded, and Six has begun time, and in some ways it was excellent: filming. Fans have a year to anticipate brilliantly acted, historically rich, and lavishly the next “too far” scenario. detailed. The plot circled around the pivotal I’ve never seen an entire episode of years leading to the assassination of Julius Game of Thrones. That’s no credit to Caesar, who “bestrode the world like a colos- someone who sat through 12 episodes sus” (according to Shakespeare) before a band of Rome, but I couldn’t go for 13. Once of conspirators, driven by motives venal and Caesar was dispatched, only gore and noble, brought him down. The Season One skin remained, swirling around an DVDs included fascinating historical notes empty vortex. The emptiness was about politics, Latin derivatives, and daily life getting to me. on the streets of antiquity’s greatest city. About a hundred years after the But in another way, Rome was awful. actual assassination of Julius Caesar, a Pornographic graffiti popped up all over the man sat in a prison in Rome and wrote, sets, and the real thing featured prominently in The threat that “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is the storyline. One instance of full-frontal nudity some R-rated honorable … if there is anything worthy of stood out among many instances of partial praise, think on these things.” The city outside nudity, and the violence sometimes involved entertainment those stone walls was even more depraved, if literal buckets of blood. Though HBO, as is its poses for anything, than the place gaudily depicted on wont, sensationalized the sex and gore, scholarly Christians is HBO. He had encountered the graffiti and the advisers to the show assured us that life in bawdy street performances and vicious brawls. Rome, ca. 40 B.C., was very much as depicted. not necessarily And Paul—“chief of sinners”—also knew the Into such a world Christ was born. that it feeds depravity in his own heart. Since 2011, the most popular series on HBO our lust, but But Christ had come and filled the empty is Game of Thrones. For those of us largely inno- center. Paul now saw everything from that cent of pop culture, it’s a dungeons-and-dragons that it feeds perspective. Rather than rail against gladiator fantasy based on a series of novels by George R. our cynicism. games and pornographic plays, he directed his R. Martin, detailing endless intrigues between readers to truth, nobility, excellence, and the warring families who rule mythical kingdoms. source of all those good things—born as a man The synopsis reads like a score sheet for the to dignify men and women. Paul’s advice was Wars of the Roses (one source for the novels), not about seeking wholesome diversions, but fueled by gruesome murders, wrenching betray- about centering ourselves in Christ. als, and casual, brutal, or multiple couplings. The threat that some R-rated entertainment Every season ups the body count while the plot poses for Christians is not necessarily that it circles around an empty moral vortex. feeds our lust, but that it feeds our cynicism. Such might the world be (minus dragons) if Jesus saw it all; He “knew what was in man,” and A
Christ had never come. In fact, devotees of the never became cynical. We should do no less. HBO
24 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015 [email protected] @jbcheaney
13 CHEANEY.indd 24 6/10/15 8:29 AM 6/9/15 9:10 AM 13 CHEANEY.indd 25
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Inside Out: disney/pixar • An Open Secret: Olivia Fougeriol/Disarming Films MOVIE Inside Out When a studio partner- her new experiences, Joy and Sadness are partners, and by R ship has engendered as Sadness take a journey the end of the fi lm, it becomes much success as Disney/Pixar through Riley’s mind (“Long clear that sadness is an has over the years, it’s easy to Term Memory,” “Imagination appropriate emotion when it is judge a fi lm by how it measures Land,” “Dream Productions,” required for repentance, or up to previous successes. Is it and the subconscious), hoping when it serves as the catalyst as emotionally compelling as to restore Riley’s happiness. of greater and more lasting Toy Story 3? Does it delight like The story world of Inside joy. Through this, Inside Out Finding Nemo? Does it contain Out is incredibly complex, rem- features a richly layered the artistry of Wall-E? With iniscent of Christopher Nolan’s vision of human emotion each release, Pixar hopes to Inception, and yet the story is and challenges the idea continue its streak of excellent told simply enough for young that one can suppresssuppress and beautiful fi lms that exceed children to follow. The fi lm sadness merely through the audience’s ever-growing emphasizes the foundation of the assertion of “positive expectations. With Inside Out, the family for emotional well- thinking.” —by TREVIN WAX rated PG for mild thematic being. When everything else elements and some action, crumbles (literally) inside Pixar has delivered. Riley’s mind, the restoration of The fi lm tells the story of her relationship with her family Riley Anderson, an 11-year-old drives the narrative forward. girl who moves to the West Though the fi lm features Coast and struggles to adapt fi ve emotions, the spotlight is to her new home and school. on Joy and Sadness (brilliantly Inside Riley’s mind, at “head- voiced by Amy Poehler and quarters,” are characters that Phyllis Smith respectively). A personify her primary emo- simplistic resolution would tions: Joy, Sadness, Disgust, have Joy and Sadness battling Fear, and Anger. As Riley’s to become Riley’s permanent Sadness (left) emotional issues surface in state. Instead, Joy and and Joy
DOCUMENTARY in detail, even though it’s not entirely clear whether the fi lm- makers are targeting its three An Open Secret founders or its legitimacy as a It is possible there is an institution- fi lm studio (DEN has been the R alized issue of child molestation in target of several lawsuits Hollywood, but this is not the fi lm to alleging sexual abuse). expose it. Amy Berg’s documentary An The fi lm makes accusations Open Secret is marketed as “the secret and gets up close and personal Hollywood doesn’t want you to know.” with alleged molesters, but it But the fi lm obscures its “secret” through relies heavily on hearsay, euphemism, irrelevant context, and opinions, and “inappropriate” insinuation. appearances to make its case. In this fi lm, former child actors accuse Corey Feldman, writing in 2013 trusted adults with power over their famous names like Leonardo DiCaprio and about being sexually abused as a child careers of pedophilia (the fi lm is rated R Bryan Singer are referenced because star, provided a more persuasive look at pedophilia in Hollywood.
ROADSIDE for descriptions of sexual abuse). These they have some loose connection to serious charges are framed by cheesy someone else mentioned in the fi lm. By trying to look at the big picture— re-enactment footage and clips of more The fi lm almost seems more preoccu- how children are easy prey in Hollywood— ATTRACTIONS famous child actors that are not part of pied with the fact that the crime might be An Open Secret glosses over the details, the fi lm’s investigation. The irrelevant happening in Hollywood than with the presents little evidence, and fails to make details are rampant: The parents of a crime itself. The founding of Digital a call to action necessary to any reform-
INSIDE OUT: DISNEY/PIXAR • AN OPEN SECRET: OLIVIA FOUGERIOL/DISARMING FILMS child star talk about how they fi rst met; Entertainment Network (DEN) is explored oriented documentary. —by ALICIA M. COHN
See all our movie reviews at wng.org/movies JUNE 27, 2015 WORLD 29
13 MOVIES & TV.indd 29 6/10/15 12:03 PM CULTURE BOOKS
Sadly, Carbone and Cahn minimize the importance of competition and o er this proof: Charles Darwin Holding “understood from his study of peacocks’ tails that com- the lines petition might produce considerable rewards for BY HONORING winners without necessarily MARRIAGE AND WORK benefi ting the larger group at by Marvin Olasky all.” Happily, people aren’t peacocks: American history shows that economic inequality creates tensions but the competition that June is a big month for anyone ‘who does not (Oxford, ) looks at leads to inequality tends to R gay parades. Jesus renounce all that he has declining marriage (and the lift all boats over time. Outside the Lines, by New cannot be my disciple.’ I am social problems that brings) One key task is to change York, now Nashville, pastor irresistibly drawn to him. I through not only an eco- high schools so kids not Scott Sauls, is designed to must be his disciple. … I nomic lens but a inclined to college appeal to younger Christians grieve because I want my class-emphasizing gain training in tech- chafi ng at the evangelical- friend to be able to share life one as well. That nical subjects that conservative alliance, so it’s and be romantically involved leads to a cherries- prepare them for signifi cant that he stands fi rm with another person. I do not and-oatmeal book: good jobs. Putting on the toughest current issue. want him to be lonely or useful facts amid a Education to Work Sauls writes that he recently alone. Yet as a Christian I am porridge of conclu- by Megan Sweas told a gay man who wanted bound to yield my personal sions. Carbone and (HarperCollins, a rmation regarding sex feelings and wishes to the Cahn argue that “the ) shows how the with another gay man, “the sacred words of Jesus.” Sauls easiest way to reduce work-study programs love of his life,” that “to a rm notes that all the biblical inequality is to reduce top of Cristo Rey high his union with the love of his references to homosexuality incomes.” That might be a schools are helping students life would mean I’d have to are negative, “with no a r- crowd-pleaser, but it’s far graduate into jobs and not deny the love of mine.” mation to counter them.” better to promote competi- drop out into frustration: Sauls continues: “Christ, June Carbone and Naomi tion and help the poor gain Evangelicals could learn from the love of my life … says that Cahn’s Marriage Markets greater skills. this Catholic experience.
SHORT STOPS he responded, “No biblical text for visiting the cult prostitute. The lack of job training for noncollege-bound kids is a big However, Joab and Abishai’s history is a very dark one and they problem in high school today, and so is getting boys to read do some wicked things that even brings David’s curse upon anything: An intriguing book series—talented screenwriter them. … The Bethlehem slaughter one was just creative license Brian Godawa’s novels about Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Joshua, to foreshadow Herod’s murder spree” in Godawa’s forthcoming and other patriarchs—may be helpful. For example, Jesus Triumphant. David Ascendant, seventh in the series, has lots of Godawa acknowledges that “Nabal was a tricky angels and devilish “gods” bashing each other with one. But I do have a justifi cation for that creative swords in the This Present Darkness Frank Peretti license. The text says after his stroke, ‘And about ten days later the Lord struck Nabal, and he died.’
tradition: Teenage boys will turn the pages. ten days later the Lord struck Nabal, and he died.’ WORLD AMIEVANBUSKIRK/ISTOCK Parents will need to decide whether the sword One could interpret that as a diff erent ‘strike’ by God BY fi ghts are appropriate, and they should also be aware that fi nishes him off . … [S]o I made Abigail engage in of extrabiblical plot complications including Joab and justjustifiifi able self-defense as God’s means for striking MODIFIED Abishai visiting a prostitute, Saul’s henchmen Nabal, even after he had the stroke.” That’s a slaughtering babies in Bethlehem, and Abigail knifi ng stretch, but I’d still rather have high-school boys her husband Nabal. I asked Godawa about those, and read these books than play Grand Theft Auto. —M.O. DEM10/ISTOCK,
30 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015
13 BOOKS.indd 30 6/10/15 8:34 AM AMIEVANBUSKIRK/ISTOCK
13 BOOKS.indd 31 DEM10/ISTOCK, MODIFIED BY WORLD wng.org/books to go reviews, and news book more see To Word. God’s of truthfulness the confi your strengthen will interesting fi important other and apostles, the disciples, the of became what learn to evidence existing and tion, tradi- history, through combs He book. new his in answer Litfi Bryan question the is this and Acts, after happened what wondered have Christians Many leaders. and churches Christian earliest the of narrative Bible’s the it, with and, suddenly ends Acts of book The ACTS AFTER FOUR Notable Christ. in faith profess who us of each to ministry doing of work general, in that, conviction Welch’s Ed with agree I wholeheartedly SIDE his in lifting heavy the do to love wise and extraordinary and conversations, stronger much be would churches our advises, book this what did all we If love. and wisdom in others with walk to Christians teaching for and thing, very that at excelling for counsel waver. we if stake at is what and BY Side by Side “God NONFICTION and SIDE research much is Litfi Bryan
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31 6/9/15 9:54AM
CULTURE Q&A
LYNN VINCENT The narrative reversal A PAINFUL EARLY LIFE WAS PREPARATION TO TELL OTHER PERSONS’ STORIES by Marvin Olasky photo by Wally Nell/Genesis
Lynn Vincent spent a decade as WORLD’s feature It didn’t get any better when you were a teenager. R editor and action-adventure writer before When I was , she lost her job and we wound up becoming the best-selling co-author of Heaven Is for homeless in Hawaii. We wound up living in a tent in Real and Same Kind of Di erent As Me. She also collab- a beach park. At some point one of her boyfriends orated on Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue: An American Life, told her something: I don’t know even what it was, and now specializes in writing narrative or “dramatic” but she chased me, knocked me to the ground, and nonfi ction books—true stories that pull readers from tried to choke me. So I ran away and wound up in a page to page like fast-paced fi ction. home for runaways. That was the fi rst time someone I understand your mom was not the greatest mother ever witnessed to me—a beautiful lady with red hair in the world. No, she was not. I grew up in a child talked to me about God. I did not feel that my consti- protective services quality childhood. And there were tutional liberties were being encroached upon. drugs. I’m coming to terms with this after all these What do you think the lasting eff ect of your hard years. My mom, trying to fi t in during the ’ s, gravi- childhood is? How do you overcome that? You don’t tated to every fringe group that there was, whether overcome it right away. God has used it for me to be Hell’s Angels, local drag queens, even witchcraft. As able to tell the story of a homeless man or the story of she tried to fi nd her way, we felt we were luggage just an addict, Michael English. God has given me empathy, being carried around. along with the gift He’s given me to be able to string
32 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015
13 Q&A.indd 32 6/4/15 2:51 PM words together. One reason I’m able to relate to the women: They felt ashamed but felt I talk to people is because I don’t ever wouldn’t judge them. feel I’m better than anyone else. I’ve Your first books came out in 2008, with Same Kind done every sin, including murder, of Different As Me becoming a huge bestseller. Why? It because I’ve had an abortion. I can has the Christian theme of redemption, salvation, and approach people on that level and they racial and class reconciliation, but it doesn’t preach. feel comfortable opening up. You were the ghostwriter for Sarah Palin’s autobi- Your parents separated when you ography. I know how you’ll answer this question, but I’ll were 3. Then there was a stepfather, but ask it anyway: Inside stuff about her? I signed a non- that didn’t work out either. How do you disclosure agreement. overcome fear of marriage? I did not Now that you are established as an author in your have a fear of marriage, but I was not own name, you have a lot of projects from which to very good at it at first; but I put my trust choose. What’s your decision process? I have to be in God’s Word, and once I decided to passionate about the story. I also have to know that the get married, no matter what happened, story can carry a narrative. A lot of times people will I was going to continue to be married. come with a story, but it’s one brief window in their So we worked at it, we worked at it, and lives and there aren’t enough “narrative reversals”— we’ve been married 26 years. when a story goes from good to bad or bad to good— to carry a full-length book. What about the book you just finished that has an Afghan locale and comes out in November? It’s called ‘My mom, trying to fit in during Dog Company: A True Story of Battlefield Courage, and it combines battlefield action and military courtroom the ’70s, gravitated to every drama. [WORLD will have more about this book in fringe group that there was, November.] How should people who want to write popular books whether Hell’s Angels, local prepare themselves? Read everything you can, from classics to “airport books” that create suspense. drag queens, even witchcraft.’ Reading fills your tank. Then write. Close the doors, turn off the phone and internet, put words on a screen. Many people really don’t like writing but they like With two children—and your younger having written. Seems to me book writing is hard to son, Jacob, just graduated from Navy sustain unless you enjoy the process. You have to be boot camp, following the family business. willing to do the work, and it’s not glamorous at all. Both you and your husband Danny were Many people have said that 90 percent of writing is Navy air traffic controllers, and you rewriting. Ninety percent of writing is rewriting, but joined when you were 21. Good move? the hardest 10 percent is the first draft. It’s worked out really well. The military You talk about “the sacred ICPID.” ICPID is my instilled in me a discipline I didn’t have. acronym for readers saying, “I couldn’t put it down.” After nine years as an air traffic controller, and After I write a book or even an article, I go through it writing for Army Times, Navy Times, and Air Force at cellular level and try to make sure that they can’t Times, you started writing for WORLD. I remember your put it down. “Keeping secrets” article from 2002, about Planned How about your anti-procrastination formula? It’s Parenthood, and your article about clergy sexual [(B + C) - (I + P)]n. I’ll decode that for you. B is for butt. abuse. How did your own experience of abortion and C is for chair. So butt plus chair, minus internet and abuse play into your reporting? When Planned phone. The variable n is for how many words can I Parenthood people would say outlandish or ridiculous write without breaking a sweat. My number is 300 things, it was hard for me to just write it down and words. move on. With the sexual abuse story, I worked on it Without breaking a sweat or without throwing up? A video of this for six or eight months. The victims were women who interview Without having little dots of blood break out on my had usually been sexually abused in childhood and in its entirety forehead. If I can’t make myself buckle down I say, “If because of that conditioning had an inability to say no can be found I can just write 300 words, I’m going to get started.” If at wng.org to a pastor who seemed like a god-figure, an authority and in the you write 300 words for five days that’s 1,500 words. figure, because of the conditioning of their childhood. iPad edition of That’s a feature length article. Do that for 10 days, Having been a victim of sexual abuse I was able to this issue that’s the length of a chapter. A
[email protected] @MarvinOlasky JUNE 27, 2015 WORLD 33
13 Q&A.indd 33 6/5/15 11:55 AM CULTURE MUSIC
Celloverse (Sony source material, Šulić and Masterworks), 2Cellos’ third Hauser elevate theirs, Mixing match album, finds them adding suggesting that even if its Recent releases offer very different Mumford & Sons (“I Will pop-era composers had lived Wait”), Paul McCartney (“Live during the 17th or 18th cen- pop-classical hybrids by Arsenio Orteza and Let Die”), Radiohead tury their God-given musical (“Street Spirit”), and Iron instincts would’ve secured Like most terms Maiden (“The Trooper” them the necessary patrons. R invented by musical medleyed with 2Cellos also demonstrate taxonomists, “classical Rossini’s “William and expand the expressive crossover” has its limits. Tell Overture”) capacities of their instru- Generally, it means to an oeuvre ment, both sonically and, on pop-friendly music that already Celloverse’s “deluxe edition” with one foot or at includes videos, visually. If the Electric least a few toes in the U2, Dick Light Orchestra’s Jeff Lynne Classical, Baroque, Dale, Guns should ever enlist them for a Romantic, or oper- N’ Roses, tour, they’ll steal the show. atic repertoire. Somewhere between Specifically, it can Dinnerstein and 2Cellos mean almost anything, falls the 58-year-old as demonstrated by fas- Japanese video-game cinating recent releases composer Nobuo from the pianist Simone Uematsu. His Dinnerstein, 2Cellos, and music has been the London Symphony given the sym- ■ Dinnerstein Orchestra. phonic treat- They’re fascinating for ment before, strikingly different reasons. reason to con- but the London Dinnerstein’s Broadway- centrate and an Symphony Lafayette: Ravel, Lasser, opportunity to Orchestra’s Gershwin (Sony Classical) is interact by Final Symphony the most high-minded of the assessing (Merregnon Studios/ lot. It identifies motific links just how ■ 2Cellos X5 Music Group) between George Gershwin’s airtight the refurbishes the music’s Rhapsody in Blue (Track logic is. stand-alone luster. Seven) and Maurice Ravel’s But what ■ Uematsu Coldplay, Sonny & One needn’t, in other words, know anything about Piano Concerto in G Minor brings the project Cher, Racer X, and • 2 Mazzuco Lisa-Marie Dinnerstein: (Tracks One through Three), to life is Dinnerstein’s Magnetic Fields. the popular Final Fantasy then explores them with a commitment to it and the AC/DC, Michael Jackson, video-game series to respond world-premiere recording of MDR Leipzig Radio and Sting they reprise. to Uematsu’s compositions. the contemporary composer Orchestra’s commitment to Is the playing of pop Stylistically, Uematsu Philip Lasser’s The Circle and Dinnerstein. In the end, one songs on cellos a gimmick? borrows from sources as the Child: Concerto for Piano needn’t agree with what’s Of course. Can pop-classical- varied as Grieg, Bernstein, and Orchestra (Tracks Four essentially a musical argu- fertilization gimmicks and Berlioz. But he does so through Six). ment to enjoy the obvious joy produce enduringly enter- with an ear toward cutting
The logic is plain. or virtuosity with which the taining hybrids? The peren- to the quick of the thrills C e ll
Gershwin, an American, com- argument is being made. nial popularity of Walter that only an orchestra can han os: posed Rhapsody in 1924. He At the opposite end of the Murphy Band’s “A Fifth of provide. And provide such d
and Ravel met in 1928, after spectrum is 2Cellos, a.k.a. the Beethoven,” Wendy Carlos’ thrills the LSO and its • out which Ravel, a Frenchman, youthful Croatian duo Luka Switched-On Bach, and conductor Eckehard Stier U e
composed his concerto in Šulić and Stjepan Hauser. Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s certainly do. m 1929. And Lasser is of French- Unlike Dinnerstein, their Pictures at an Exhibition sug- They might even manage ha atsu: American parentage—the intention is not to unite high- gests that the answer is yes. to turn gamers on to the n d
missing link as it were. These cultural strains but high But whereas Murphy, richness of the world beyond out
connections give listeners a culture and low. Carlos, and ELP lowered their their computer screens. A handout
34 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015 [email protected] @ArsenioOrteza
13 MUSIC.indd 34 6/9/15 2:15 PM DINNERSTEIN: LISA-MARIE MAZZUCO • 2CELLOS: HANDOUT • UEMATSU: HANDOUT UEMATSU: • HANDOUT 2CELLOS: • MAZZUCO LISA-MARIE DINNERSTEIN:
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35 6/9/15 2:15PM MINDY BELZ these is ourselves. Ultimately, we aren’t the best mediators of our own stories. We know too well we present versions of ourselves; just take a look at social media. And we can make and remake versions of our lives, patching and mending beginning, middle, and end from whole cloth, as though we are gods. After Bruce Jenner appeared as Caitlyn on the cover of Vanity Fair, he-cum-she What’s the story? tweeted, “I’m so happy after such a long struggle more than you should be shaping yours to be living my true self.” And Barack Obama (via one of his accounts) retweeted it with the comment, “It takes courage Tell your story, they say. Everyone has a to share your story.” R story to tell. Besides the sex change Our books of the year in this issue do pre- operations, Jenner had cisely that—some layered up with the stories of taken a new name pro- characters stretched even across galaxies, foundly at odds with any some straightforward in tackling an issue of attachment to the reality of the day, and some overwhelming like a wave his story. In 1949, the year shedding new light on an old topic, namely our Jenner was born, Bruce pilgrim journey. was the 26th most popular All of these stories fit the formula laid down name among boy names. by Aristotle: They have a beginning, a middle, Caitlyn didn’t enter the list and an end. But if we’re honest, when it comes of top 1,000 until 1976, the to telling our own stories, on our own we don’t year the 26-year-old Jenner have enough information to do it. We weren’t won an Olympic gold fully conscious at the beginning of our own medal in the decathlon. story, and we may descend again into some Then it was Caitlin, the altered state of reality at the end. Irish name, which wasn’t One of the earliest stories I know about my popularized as Caitlyn life is that when my mother and father brought Different until the 1990s. Taking a name more suited to me home from the hospital, my brother gazed one of his daughters, Jenner took his own inside the bassinet and exclaimed, “That’s not a forces can be metanarrative to a new level, recasting not only girl, she doesn’t have pigtails.” at work to its middle and end but its beginning. That quip formed my earliest image of my shape our Jenner isn’t alone guilty of reshaping one’s brother, gave me a window into his personality facts, though he did it in profoundly disfiguring from a time I don’t remember actually. And that’s stories, and and disturbing ways. Decades ago journalist where the stories others tell, and the stories our one of the most Malcolm Muggeridge in The End of Christendom culture tells, come in. They fill in the beginning cautionary wrote about our “built-in propensity” to twist we don’t remember, and the end we may not facts so much we miss the most important see, plus help us understand the living it out we of these is thing—“… if I had been correspondent in the do in the middle. Because the trick to telling ourselves. Holy Land at the time of our Lord’s ministry, I our own story is actually living it out in the should almost certainly have spent my time middle, knowing there is a verifiable beginning knocking about with the entourage of Pontius and an end, and being alert to the clues of its Pilate, finding out what the Sanhedrin was up temporal and eternal meaning. to, and lurking around Herod’s court with the Some of the greatest news in life is that our hope of signing up Salome to write her mem- stories can change, the past and future be oirs exclusively.” remade in a moment. I’m profoundly grateful On a day-to-day basis we journalists have to my story changed upon hearing a pastor admit we miss the big news, too. A starting recount Nebuchadnezzar’s drinking out of the point is having care and integrity in the story stolen goblets and the writing on the wall. It was we’re writing of our own lives. America’s pre-
a telling that brought me to faith in Jesus Christ. occupation with fantasy, and its grotesque pro- krieg But different forces can be at work to shape pensity to create fantasy lives, may come at the barrie our stories, and one of the most cautionary of expense of telling the greatest story of all. A
36 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015 [email protected] @mcbelz
13 MINDY.indd 36 6/9/15 4:06 PM NEW! The Intersection of Church and State NEW! Debates about the proper relationship between church and state date back to the time of the founding fathers and the arguments continue dominate the news today. The Rev Gregory P. Seltz assists viewers in understanding the multi-layered and sometimes contentious arguments that surround this issue. Despite the challenges Seltz believe there is still tremendous potential for church and state to work together for the common good. 110 minutes. DVD - #501641D, $19.99 SALE! $14.99 Proof through the Night “Oh Say, Can You See...?” In the 200 years since Francis Scott Key rst wrote those words on the back of a letter, they have inspired millions. The hope and joy expressed in the American National Anthem are so moving that more than ve million people signed petitions for its of cial adoption. Yet within those words is an expression of a Christian’s faith and gratitude for deliverance. Told though the words of eyewitnesses and those who knew him best, this presentation tells the story not only of the song, but of the man and the beliefs that inspired it. 56 minutes. DVD - #501449D, $19.99 SALE! $14.99 People of Faith Survey the history of Christianity in the United States from before the Pilgrims to the present in this six-episode DVD series. You’ll gain valuable perspective on the people and ideas that shaped America and see how it came to be the rst nation in history based upon the ideal of religious liberty. You’ll meet the spiritual visionaries, leaders, and entrepreneurs who shaped Christianity across the centuries, including Jonathan Edwards, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Martin Luther King Jr. and Billy Graham, among many others. Well researched, balanced, fast-paced, and insightful, People of Faith features expert commentary from an array of scholars including Martin Marty, Joel Carpenter, Thomas Kidd, Kathryn Long, and more. 3 hours. DVD - #501437D, $29.99 SALE! $23.99 We the People Travel back in time through the eyes of America’s unsung patriots to experience the trials and victories that have formed our nation’s destiny and secured the blessings of liberty for future generations. In this six-episode series you’ll meet a diverse cross-section of people who have all played a role in our nation’s history. Each episode presents a phrase from the Preamble with examples of people whose lives embodied that ideal. Six 30-minute programs. DVD - #501245D, $29.99 SALE! $19.99 The Gospel of Liberty Produced by Colonial Williamsburg, the program recreates for students of American independence the re of George White eld, the zeal of the Reverend Samuel Davies, and their pursuit of the right to worship ac- cording to one’s convictions. With Colonial Williamsburg as a backdrop, Thomas Jefferson guides viewers to understand how the axiom that government ought not legislate belief became a fundamental pillar of American democracy. 37 minutes. DVD - #500839D, $19.99 SALE! $14.99 Purchase all ve above – a $119.94 value – for only $39.99, #97560D with coupon code USA15. Save $79.99! Sale is good until July 31, 2015. YOUR SATISFACTION IS GUARANTEED! krieg TO ORDER, CALL: MAIL TO: ON THE WEB: barrie 1-800-523-0226 Vision Video – Dept WM0615 www.visionvideo.com Please mention source code “WM0615” PO Box 540 Please use coupon code when ordering. Worcester, PA 19490 “USA15” in your shopping cart. (include $6.99 shipping)
WM0615.indd 1 6/3/15 8:38 AM 13 MINDY.indd 37 6/8/15 9:51 AM Mmmm... FOUR Books of the Year A committee of WORLD writers chose these books, spread among four categories, that should be ‘chewed and digested’ by Marvin Olasky book photos by Matt Rose
rancis Bacon died almost 400 years ago, but his famous description of words on pages still animates our selection process: “Some books are to be tasted, others Fto be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.” We—our committee of five WORLD writers—throughout the year looked for books that tempt us to delay writing projects: “Couldn’t put it down,” one committee member wrote about our novel of the year. Good books are exciting to read. We look for books that are thoughtful and capable of planting among our readers new ideas consistent with what the Bible teaches. Exciting, accessible, thoughtful: What the Francis Bacon in us would like to e-a-t. A few other introductory notes. Our books issue, dated June 27, comes at this time of year because the 2015 International Christian Retail Show begins on June 28. Publication between May 1, 2014, and April 30, 2015, made this year’s winners and honorees eligible for consideration. Our com- mittee members read numerous books, developed a short list of 14, and voted. The winners are: 1 Fiction: The Book of Strange New Things (Michel Faber) 1 Accessible theology: enGendered: God’s Gift of Gender Difference in Relationship (Sam Andreades) 1 Current events/public affairs: America in Retreat (Bret Stephens) 1 History/biography: Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (Erik Larson)
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Novels
The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
These days, in books from secular pub- lishers, we expect to see pastors depicted as hypocrites and missionaries as agents of exploitation. That’s what we’d expect from Michel Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things (Hogarth), which has as its protagonist a pastor called to be a missionary to the strange creatures of a planet galaxies away from his wife. Does he (a) steal precious minerals, (b) molest the females, (c) create a bizarre cult with himself as God, or (d) all of the above? The answer is (e) none of the above. Instead we find empathy and splendid writing, and that’s why The Book of Strange New Things is our novel of the year. Peter the missionary is a rock. He tells his worried wife that “God will guide me.” He appears to be genuinely committed to the members of his flock on the planet Oasis: They are about 5 feet tall with two legs, small bones, narrow shoulders, two hands of five fingers each, and big heads with faces that “look nothing like a face” and more like “a massive whitish-pink walnut kernel.” But Faber doesn’t emphasize their appearance or the science elements of Not only that: These Oasans are that’s actually … sweet, right? No way? this science fiction. He cares about hungry for more. They call themselves I can mention one subplot: Bea, souls, and here’s the shock: The Oasans “Jesus Lover One” or “Jesus Lover 30,” Peter’s wife, sends him from galaxies have already heard of Jesus from a pre- in order of when they made profes- away increasingly distressed messages vious missionary, and many of them sions of faith. Some Oasans are stand- about problems on Earth, and he is so believed. Seventy of them greet Peter by offish, but many listen eagerly to enraptured by the pure faith of his singing what first seems to be abstract sermons, quickly build a church, and Oasan flock that the reality of her life
sound, but he then discerns “maaazzz yearn for more teaching from the Bible, seems increasingly unreal to him. But Colin iiiiiiing graaaaaa how weeeeett a which they call “the book of strange I’ll stop here to avoid spoilers, except to M c
ouuund thaat aaaaaaaved a wreeee new things.” A fourth of the way note the personal tragedy that Dutch- Pherson liiiike meeeee.” The Oasans can’t pro- through Faber’s 500 pages, then half born author Faber, who lives in nounce s but the message of their lives the way, I continued to wonder: “What’s Scotland, had while writing the novel: /Corbis is also the message of Peter, formerly the catch?” No way a mainstream His wife Eva developed terminal cancer,
an addict: I once was lost but now am British publisher is going to put out a and she died last July just as he was /a found. book with Christian faith at its core doing the final edits on his manuscript. p
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— — Faber, , now says The it was out of the pot it was THE REASON John Ames, bears him a Book of Strange New Things a human being, even if it FOR GOD child in his old age—and is his last novel, but he’s had no arms and no legs, Tim Keller in Lila Robinson moves been writing poetry about and was protected by — — her from the wings to Eva and may publish some national laws.” She thus ENGLISH center stage. STANDARD of it. Faber’s publisher says goes to outrageous VERSION The book begins with the book’s emotional integ- measures to enforce STUDY BIBLE misery: young Lila locked rity and power come out of abortions, even using a out of her house because — — the heartbreak Faber had motorboat and loud- THE BATTLE she won’t stop crying. It’s as he was writing it. Or speaker while chasing a Arthur Brooks not clear who the evicting maybe this extraordinary pregnant woman trying to adults are, but they clearly — — novel is a gift from God at a swim out of her reach. SHOULD have no compassion time when many Christians The country folks CHRISTIANS regarding the dirty, wet, EMBRACE are facing hard times: aren’t innocent, either: EVOLUTION? hungry child. A mysteri- Maybe we need to bury our Their deep-seated favorit- Norman Nevin, ed. ous woman, Doll, who pride and become Jesus ism for boys drives GOD AND lives in the house with the Lover two billion. —M.O. husbands and wives to EVOLUTION others, returns home, terrible acts, and a hus- Jay Richards, ed. fi nds Lila, cleans her up, band whose wife just died — — and nurses her back to RUNNER-UP Chinese dis- giving birth to a second THE TRIUMPH OF health. Lila then travels CHRISTIANITY senters have called contro- daughter mourns his Rodney Stark the country with Doll and versial Nobel Prize winner family line rather than his a band of migrants who Mo Yan a mouthpiece for dead wife. — — eke out a living picking ESCAPE FROM the Communist Party—but Frog imagery infuses NORTH KOREA crops and doing odd jobs. his newly translated novel the text. Frogs—wa in Melanie By the time Lila ends Frog (Viking) takes a hard Chinese—symbolize Kirkpatrick up in the tiny Iowa town look at China’s one-child fertility, family prosperity, — — of Gilead, she’s alone and policy and its trail of and femaleness in China. WHAT’S YOUR carrying a life’s worth of WORLDVIEW devastation. But wa also sounds James N. Anderson shame. There she meets Set in a rural village in exactly like the cry of John Ames, who spots her MISSION AT Northeast China, the - babies: wa, wa. This NUREMBERG taking refuge in the back page novel barely mentions theme culminates in one Tim Townsend of his church. Critics have the post–Great terrifying night THE TYRANNY OF praised the book for the EXPERTS Leap Forward scene when, sur- William Easterly way it develops the rela- famine that rounded by the tionship between the killed million croaks of frogs, learned Rev. Ames and the civilians and the Gugu suddenly uneducated, deeply terror-reigning hears the cries of thousands of wounded Lila. Christians will appreciate Cultural newborn infants—wa, wa, wa!— the many ways Robinson incorporates Revolution that “as if the souls of countless biblical themes and imagery, some- pitted families and neighbors murdered infants were hurling times explicitly. Lila is like the cast-o against each other. Mo, accusations.” baby in Ezekiel . She’s like the wild though, swings hard at his Not even the iron-willed Gugu olive branch, grafted in. main target as he describes the can withstand such guilt, and Mo In many ways, John Ames is like descent of Gugu, a revered midwife does a masterful job of weaving the Abraham, surprised in his old age to who delivered thousands of new lives system’s comprehensive human fi nd love and become a father. into the world, and later aborts more toll into a humorous yet chilling Lila is just as surprised to fi nd
COLIN than , unborn babies. tale. —Sophia Lee an accepting home. She’s been Desperate to prove state loyalty after hurt and abandoned so often, MCPHERSON/CORBIS her fi ancé defected to Taiwan, Gugu she remains poised to run. becomes a zealous champion of the RUNNER-UP Marilynne Although Lila stands alone as national family planning policy and its Robinson’s Lila (Farrar, Straus a story of grace amid su ering, twisted logic: “Before it was ‘out of the and Giroux) is a prequel to her it’s probably more under-
/AP pot’ it was just meat, and it needed to highly regarded Gilead. Lila, the standable to those familiar come out one way or another. But once young wife of -year-old Rev. with Gilead. —Susan Olasky
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Accessible Theology
enGendered: God’s Gift of Gender Difference in Relationship by Sam A. Andreades
WORLD’s book of the year in the theol- ogy for nonacademics category is enGendered: God’s Gift of Gender Difference in Relationship (Weaver). That’s because author Sam Andreades guides readers through at least three crucial cultural debates: Are men and women different? How should husbands and wives help each other? What about same-sex marriage? His key concept is asym- metry: Men and women are different and have different tasks in mar- riage. Husbands should make their wives secure, and wives should give their husbands rest: “The principles of rest-giving and secure-making are the roadway underneath the snow of cultural practices.” Andreades shows how at the begin- ning of the book of Judges, men treasure women: “Othniel secures the woman by taking the city for her. At the end, though, men are raping and mistreating women as if they were disposable short, “a real man is someone who lays from 10 men who had a history of objects.” He exegetes passages about down his life for the women in his life.” same-sex relationships but are now in Jael slaying Sisera and a woman using a He notes that the Bible is unlike the thriving man-woman marriages lasting millstone to crack Abimelech’s skull: Quran, which teaches that “men have five years or more. “These brave women, in creative ways, authority over women because God has Throughout, Andreades writes with brought rest to their homes. … [T]hey made the one superior to the other” and wonderful flow and shows how the prin- teach us that the way in which we do advises husbands to “admonish [wives], ciples of secure-making and rest-giving gender is not limited to one narrow forsake them in beds apart, and beat underlie so much in the Bible. For exam- job.” them.” The Bible praises women busi- ple, Mosaic gender statutes forbidding Andreades shows how “embracing ness executives such as Lydia in Acts 16 prostitution “kept the home a refuge by gender distinction in housework and Bereans in Acts 17, but indicates forbidding women from selling the gift of
improves marriage.” It makes sense that women should not be elders. sex outside of it. And they kept the men Paul
that nine of 10 evangelicals say “mar- Andreades also emphasizes the securing their wives and daughters by L omax/DN riage should be an equal partnership importance of asymmetry in critiquing disallowing a society where men could [and] the husband should be head of same-sex relationships. He learned bed women without commitment. A land A I
the family,” because he provides much while pastoring a PCA church in without the possibility of prostitution is a n fo security and she gives him rest. In Greenwich Village and offers insights land where women sense safety.” —M.O.
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13 COVER STORY.indd 42 6/5/15 4:54 PM RUNNER-UP Dane Ortlund’s wave comes that cannot be out-jumped. that the state could preserve children Edwards on the Christian Life: Alive It washes over us. We become com- from dire ecclesiastical or capitalist to the Beauty of God (Crossway) is pletely submerged, and there is no way infl uences and have them retain their important at a time when television to avoid it. The total-submersion wave natural goodness. demands visible emotion: Arms is what Edwards knew God sends to his That revolutionary project did not thrust upward mean happiness; children to drive home their pilgrim work out well. Recent history provides screwed-up eyes and grimacing status.” —M.O. evidence of what Paul and Augustine mouth mean intense prayer. knew: Our sin is incurable, so we need Ortlund shows that Edwards went Someone to heal us. That’s good news, deeper: “When we fi rst picture joy, RUNNER-UP Adam, the Fall, and Original as Madueme and Reeves declare: we might think of loud shouts of Sin: Theological, Biblical, and Scientifi c “Inherited sin is a dark reality, but it is praise, exuberant exclamations, Perspectives, edited by Hans Madueme one with the widest silver lining. … expressive displays of exultation— and Michael Reeves (Baker), includes Because Adam fi rst sinned, we all par- the sort of response you’d expect thoughtful essays ticipate in that one sin, and as a result from someone who has just won on this basic we are all in the same sinking boat, we the lottery. Edwards’s theology of Christian teaching all have the same problem”—and we joy goes in a di erent direction. He now under assault have the solution in Christ. Happily, speaks of the quiet sweetness of by those who say an nothing in oversold Darwinian theory true joy.” individual Adam forces us to give up that solution, as two That doesn’t play well on televi- never existed. of the chapters note. —M.O. sion: “For Edwards, a person may Jettisoning the be enjoying true joy yet without doctrine, though, looking joyful in terms of the way has consequences. RUNNER-UP Many books examining the world tends to defi ne joy. True Madueme and same-sex marriage emerged over the joy is not frothy. It does not equate Reeves, in an essay well- past year: Solid exegesis and tight writ- with laughing or joking.” Ortlund’s titled “Threads in a Seamless Garment,” ing make Kevin DeYoung’s What Does good summary: “The calm, exqui- show that without a real, historical fall the Bible Really Teach About site contentedness … of resting we are left to explain evil by either Homosexuality? satisfi ed in God, in his beauty and dualism, where good and evil combat (Crossway) stand love … the nondramatic, discrete each other, or monism, where God out. DeYoung faith- happiness of a heart fi lled with the transcends both good and evil. fully explains the love of heaven. Authentic joy is not Other authors show how man’s loss hard-hitting words ostentatious. It does not draw of personal fellowship with God— in Genesis , attention to itself. It need not; it communion with the Holy Spirit— Leviticus and has all it needs in God.” explains the corruption of our nature. , Romans , Ortlund delivers clear chapters They show how original sin is crucial to Corinthians , and and useful metaphors showing biblical understanding even when it’s Timothy , but he Edwards’ view of aspects of the not explicitly mentioned: It’s why the also contextualizes Christian life: New Birth (the ignition), world goes from “very good” at the end those verses in the whole story of Love (the essence), of Chapter of Genesis to “only evil God creating, man sinning, and “a holy Joy (the fuel), continually” in Chapter , to Abraham God making a way to dwell in the midst Gentleness (the and Isaac both risking their wives, to of an unholy people.” That whole story aroma), Scripture Moses teaching all Israel that only explains giving ourselves over to sexual (the treasure), radical heart changes will allow them immorality can lose us the opportunity Prayer (the commu- to obey God, to all the problems that to eat of the tree of life. nion), Pilgrimage emerge in Judges and Kings. DeYoung helpfully focuses on seven (the fl avor), and The biggest debate in the early of the gay lobby’s objections to seeing Obedience (the Christian church was on this issue: marriage as a male-female bonding, fruit). Regarding Pelagius denied original sin and argued and demonstrates that no persuasive pilgrimage, he that we are born innocent and start historical, cultural, pastoral, or herme- writes that at the beach we sinning by imitating what we see neutical objections should move us to “feel the waves beginning to come around us. Happily, Augustine under- abandon the plain meaning of the Bible.
HANDOUT against us. First our ankles, then knees, stood di erently and won the debate He shows us that God objects to every waist, and so on. As we continue out , years ago, but in the th and kind of homosexual activity, that the into the water, though, inevitably a th centuries neo-Pelagians argued objections are of a di erent character
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than critiques of gluttony or divorce, that churches should welcome broken people but not affirm continued destructiveness. He also offers good responses to common claims that “you’re on the wrong side of history,” “it’s not fair,” and “the God I worship is a God of love.” It would be much easier for biblical Christians today if the Bible were not so clear about homosexuality, but DeYoung shows that the underlying question is not same-sex marriage but the authority of the Bible and its entire grand narrative. That’s not giving up so as to attain a temporary peace that offers us no true peace. —M.O.
Current Issues/ Public Policy
America in Retreat by Bret Stephens
“A balance of power may seem plausible in theory. But the nature of power is that it seeks preeminence, not balance.” That’s how Bret Stephens, foreign- affairs columnist for The Wall Street Journal, critiques unrealistic hopes in America in Retreat (Sentinel)— and his lucid analysis makes it WORLD’s current issues/public policy book of the year. our problems, the United leads to major crimes—to the interna- Stephens shows how isola- States is still the world’s tional scene. That means the United tionist rhetoric is on the rise in leader in innovation, with States should maintain a visible pres- America, along with balance-of- the strongest military. He ence, demand some degree of reciproc- power appeasement. The consequence notes that we have “surprised ourselves” ity from our allies, and focus on putting may be more disorder than we bar- several times in recent history: winning out fires and punishing bad actors gained for, including world war and the the Cold War, halting runaway crime, rather than remaking nations. avoidable sacrifice of countless lives. leading the digital revolution in the America in Retreat does have limita- He counters the clichés about how the 2000s and the energy renaissance in tions. Stephens sees problems in our United States cannot be “the world’s the 2010s. current military structure and diplo- policeman” by saying the United States Besides, our not-entirely-eroded matic corps, but gives less attention must take on that role, for if America bedrock values make the United States than he should to political obstacles and does not lead, Russia, China, or Iran as close to a moral power as exists in deep-seated isolationist tendencies that
very likely will. the world today. Stephens applies the go back to Washington’s warning to jason Can this country make an interna- “broken windows” theory of urban “avoid foreign entanglements.” His tional comeback? Stephens argues that policing—ignoring minor problems strategy for keeping order may sound smith retreat does not imply decline. For all creates a sense of lawlessness that utopian—or worse, Wilsonesque (as in
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13 COVER STORY.indd 44 6/5/15 3:36 PM Woodrow)—but Stephens sees it as embrace su ering because it is part of most vulnerable (the poor and unedu- merely practical: Instead of trying to “God’s perfecting work” in our lives, cated), while benefi tting middle-class make the world “safe for democracy,” allowing us to know Christ and become and high-profi le black leaders. Riley the United States should simply try to more like Him. e ectively uses facts, fi gures, and per- make the world safer. Nyquist encourages American sonal recollection to support his case Is that modest goal attainable? The Christians to avoid the easy exit. Then and doesn’t spare the Republican Party, possibility is worth an honest debate, his instruction gets harder: God com- which could have done much more to and America in Retreat sets forth a solid mands us to respond to our persecutors reach out to African-Americans. case for the a rmative. —Janie B. Cheaney with compassion, not anger. Only by Riley, a leader in the new generation embracing such meekness can we turn of black conservatives, is following the mistreatment into opportunities for trails Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, RUNNER-UP American Christians spreading the gospel: “God wants us to and Shelby Steele blazed. Unlike them, haven’t had to sacrifi ce much. That’s be his witnesses, not his prosecuting he experienced fi rsthand the downturn the opening argument J. Paul Nyquist attorneys,” Nyquist writes. of black culture during the s. In makes in his book Prepare: Living Your Prepare opens with a dose of reality, many ways he is blessed: Though his Faith in an Increasingly Hostile Culture transforms into a pep talk, and ends parents separated, his father remained (Moody). But then comes the warning: with a message of hope. Nyquist a purposeful presence in his life, incor- The nation’s culture reminds us we are not alone. God porating a strong work ethic and sparing war is over, promises that the steadfast will be his son the reactionary scorn for “acting Christians have lost, rewarded, not forgotten. Our goal? white” that sprang up with hip-hop and and persecution is “Fear God, not man.” —Edward Lee Pitts gangsta rap. But Riley saw his own on its way: sisters succumb to single motherhood “Christians are and remembers his -year-old niece being ordered to RUNNER-UP In Please Stop Helping Us: mocking his diction: “Why you talk leave the rroomoom and How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to white, Uncle Jason?” take their Bible talk Succeed (Encounter), Jason Riley quotes The book ends abruptly and lacks a with them.” Lyndon Johnson’s commencement ringing call to action, but that makes Nyquist predicts speech for Howard University in : sense: Given the harm liberal help has more hostility, rejection, and He said the next done, a ringing call to inaction might marginalization as religious liberty pro- stage of progress in help more. —Janie B. Cheaney tections continue to fray. He not only civil rights would gives numerous examples but contex- be “not just equality tualizes them with his sense that as a right and a the- RUNNER-UP Bootleggers & Baptists America is a modern retelling of the ory but equality as a (Cato Institute), by the grandson-grandpa book of Judges where “everyone is fact and equality as writing team of Adam Smith and Bruce doing what is right in their own eyes.” a result.” Riley notes Yandle, is a public policy book that’s That the spiritual climate has shifted is some progress but both serious and fun to read. The title no surprise to WORLD readers, but lots of regress over stems from Prohibition, when Baptists Nyquist’s attitude may be “We are to be the last years and and bootleggers super-abundantly, overfl owing, exceed- presents a concise, sympathetic, both worked to shut ingly overjoyed persecution knocked but unfl inching examination of the down taverns and on our door.” question: Is the chief engine of black other places where That’s a lot of excitement over pain. progress government action, or has alcohol could be Why? Nyquist argues that oppression government policy had a minimal, even publicly consumed. will challenge American Christians to detrimental e ect on black progress? More recently, the live what the Bible teaches. He reminds Riley shows that even though religious right has us that persecution is the norm for America has a “Black Man in the White worked alongside Christianity: The World Evangelical House” (Chapter ), African-Americans bricks-and-mortar Fellowship estimates million are statistically, economically, and liquor sellers to Christians live under daily threat of socially worse o now than when fi ght interstate shipment of wine imprisonment or torture. Nyquist Barack Obama took o ce. That’s con- and lobbied alongside casinos to
JASON chides American believers who think all tinuing a long trend: Government policy oppose online gambling. of God’s blessings are pleasant: “In regarding sentencing, family structure, The B&B concept also has broader SMITH God’s economy persecution means education, and employment has tended applications. Natural gas producers and we’re blessed not cursed.” We should to harm rather than help the community’s environmentalists fi ght use of coal: one
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more example of an economic interest gaining a halo by uniting with a suppos- History/ edly disinterested group. Another example: Traffic safety groups and big Biography trucking companies both supported a U.S. Department of Transportation proposal that all trucks have Global Dead Wake: The Last Positioning System (GPS) devices. The Crossing of the Lusitania reason: Big companies that already have GPS on their trucks are happy to run up by Erik Larson the costs of smaller competitors that usually don’t. Readers of Erik Larson’s Dead Wake The biggest grab of recent years, (Crown) are immune to spoilers. We Obamacare, squeaked through know how the story ends: A German Congress with support both from the submarine torpedoed and sank the four- AARP and other groups supposedly stack steam luxury liner Lusitania off representing public interests and from the coast of Ireland in 1915. But Larson the Pharmaceutical Research and creates tension by painstakingly Manufacturers of America, which had recreating the weeks leading up to language inserted into the bill that the disaster. He masterfully tells barred importation of less expensive the story of those responsible drugs manufactured or sold abroad. for sinking the Lusitania and That was political pork, but Smith and makes us empathize with the Yandle note that “politicians who ordinary men, women, and chil- deliver pork to the Bootleggers can dren who were war’s collateral justify their actions by appealing to damage. That appeal to emotion as higher Baptist morality.” well as intellect makes Dead Wake our The key understanding behind this: history/biography book of the year. “Most government-provided goods and Larson’s real-life characters grip services are not really ‘public’ at all. readers. He sketches the ship’s experi- They are bundles of private goods that enced captain, William Thomas redound to the benefit of specific indi- Turner; famous and not-so-famous viduals, communities, and organizations passengers who thought the ship too rather than society as a whole. These fast and too mighty to be in danger; the benefits do not spring randomly from German submarine captain, Walther public wells but are generated by the Schwieger; British politicians, includ- behavior of particular special interests— ing Winston Churchill, who wanted to Bootleggers—working with particular draw the Americans into the war; and political entrepreneurs.” the codebreakers in Room 40, who submarine and the carnage they inflict The housing crash that turned into successfully tracked the German subs. with their torpedoes, which they see our Great Recession shows one result of But Larson also focuses on the whys only from the end of a periscope. He such entrepreneurship: “What could be and what-ifs of the story. What if the cuts to quotidian scenes on the more noble than enabling people every- Cunard company had paid attention to Lusitania, then to the Admiralty where where to experience the American German warnings? What if the ship’s analysts track the killer sub, then to homeownership dream, even if they crew had run life boat drills and Capt. Turner who doesn’t understand lack the income to qualify for regular taught passengers how to wear their the danger he’s speeding toward. But loans? Yet perhaps it is not so noble life jackets? Why didn’t the Admiralty the tragic end is what we know: It took when families by the thousands are warn Capt. Turner about the pres- the mighty Lusitania only 18 minutes to bounced from their homes. … The great ence of a submarine along his route, sink, killing 1,198 people, most of them housing bubble and its collapse were or send warships to escort it safely civilians. Two years later, the United rooted in a complex witch’s brew of into port? States entered the war. —Susan Olasky special interest legislation. … Larson depicts the cramped life on
Bootlegger/Baptist-driven legislation the German submarine while it searches handout had spurned the expansion of such for targets. He shows the video-game- RUNNER-UP Blaine Harden’s The Great risky loans.” —M.O. like disconnect between men on the Leader and the Fighter Pilot (Viking)
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13 COVER STORY.indd 46 6/5/15 3:52 PM a demigod by state- massive economic and social pressures— sanctioned myths. and also on those who see change trick- Harden calls Kim a ling down from the decisions of leaders. “Soviet poodle” whose USC professor Sarotte combines the “monotonous, plain, sensibility of a journalist and a histo- and duck-like voice” rian in showing how Lutheran pastors annoyed listeners. Josef in Leipzig—some brave and bold, others Stalin considered Kim hesitant and ambivalent—called for “a man of no conse- marches that gradually increased the quence.” Mao Zedong pressure on Communist Party leaders thought him an “irritat- running out of both money and vision. ing incompetent.” The Collapse tracks well the hour-by- But Kim was shrewd hour process in Berlin on Nov. , , enough to turn “the that led the terrible wall to come tum- Yankee bastards” into bling down. his perfect enemy. After Sarotte concludes, “The Wall’s open- U.S. planes during the ing was not a gift from political elites, Korean War bombed East German or and napalmed the otherwise, and was North’s cities and in no way predeter- towns, Kim cleverly mined. It resulted utilized this devastation from a remarkable as a fear-mongering constellation of propaganda tool to actors and contin- empower his own legit- gent events—and imacy. Part biography, not a little courage part history, and part on the part of some memoir, the book can of the individuals help readers under- directly involved—that came stand the Kim dynasty’s together in a precise but entirely longevity, bizarre unplanned sequence.” She twice refers antics, and obsession to “fortuitous timing,” because, if the with nuclear weapons. pressure hadn’t peaked until , Harden’s best- Mikhail Gorbachev would have been selling previous book, under greater pressure from hardliners Escape from Camp , and the United States would have been churned opaque infor- involved in Iraq War I. mation about human But Sarotte also notes that “the tells the riveting parallel tales of two rights in North Korea into a best-selling history of shows just how many extraordinary North Koreans. thriller by narrating the harrowing life things have to go right for such a revo- One, cunning fi ghter pilot No Kum of prison camp survivor Shin Dong- lution to succeed”—and that leaves me Sok, noisily proclaimed his love for Kim hyuk, who later confessed to fabricating thinking that Christians should change while planning to defect in a Soviet certain details of his account. Harden’s “fortuitous timing” to “providential.” A MiG- jet. The son of a middle-class, second book also chases a human inter- quarter-century later we tend to take baseball-loving fam- est angle, but eyewitness testimonies, the happy ending for granted, but in ily did just that in archival material, and recently declassi- Tiananmen Square the revolutionary , and today he fi ed documents made possible more stirrings ended in mass murder. It is -year-old substantial fact-checking. —Sophia Lee could have been that bad or far worse in Kenneth Rowe, a Berlin, with hundreds of thousands of retired aerospace troops on both sides of the border and engineer and RUNNER-UP Mary Sarotte’s The Collapse: nuclear missiles minutes away. American citizen. The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall Praise God from Whom all blessings
HANDOUT The other, Kim Il (Basic Books) overtly blows the whistle fl ow. Sarotte may or may not under- Sung, was an under- on those who think earth-shaking stand that, but she does a great job of achiever turned into changes are the inevitable results of providing the details. —M.O.
WORLD 47 JUNE 27, 2015
13 COVER STORY.indd 47 6/5/15 3:52 PM BOOKS
Our favorite genre Readable and insightful history books from the past 12 months
BY MARVIN OLASKY photo illustration by Krieg Barrie
ver the years, when meeting toleration, minimizing bureaucracy, and but to accept contracts that virtually re- WORLD members, I’ve often maximizing the opportunity for church enslaved them. Oasked what kinds of books they entrepreneurialism. John Compton’s The Evangelical like best. Almost always the reply is: Kathryn Lum’s Damned Origins of the Living Constitution history. Here are a dozen books in Nation: Hell in America (Harvard, ) o ers a fascinating and American history that I learned from from the Revolution to innovative analysis of how the federal during the past year but have not previ- Reconstruction (Oxford, government started to lord it over pri- ously reviewed, and a second dozen ), documents vate property: th-century evangelicals concerning Europe, varying American ideas tried to eliminate immorality by Turkey, and Israel. about hell from the restricting property rights, and judges Robert Middlekau ’s Revolution through the “bent the constitutional framework to Washington’s Civil War: Many pastors subscribed to accommodate a series of ever more Revolution: The Making the “scared straight” school of preach- restrictive state and of America’s First ing, but others worried that “human federal morals laws” Leader (Knopf, ) is scaring by frightful imagery” was more concerning lotteries, a solid retelling of how likely to make “confi dent imposters” alcohol sales, and other the great general than genuine Christians. matters. “Progressive” matured through his fi rst years S.C. Gwynne’s Rebel jurists were then able to and persevered throughout the Yell: The Violence, use those precedents to Revolution when others Passion, and Redemption make the point that despaired. Joe Loconte’s of Stonewall Jackson legal concepts and cate- God, Locke, and Liberty (Scribner, ) shows gories were in fl ux, with traditional (Lexington, ) how the famous general constitutional principles only serving to examines John Locke’s embodied strong mask the judiciary’s subjective prefer- views of religious Christian faith and ence for laissez-faire economic policies. toleration, which scared Union generals. (usually indirectly) Jackson would have been fascinated by ALSO PRESIDING over American devolu- infl uenced Washington specifi c detail in Empire of Cotton: tion have been presidents with a variety and other key founders. A Global History (Knopf, of religious commitments Baptists in America: A ): Sven Beckert that two scholarly books History, by Thomas Kidd shows the role Southern document well. Gary and Barry Hankins cotton played in the Scott Smith in Religion (Oxford, ), is an ele- th-century world in the Oval O ce gantly written account economy, and the (Oxford, ) assesses of how Baptists became European interest in Madison, both Adamses, the largest Protestant making sure that ex- Jackson, McKinley, bloc by emphasizing slaves had little choice Hoover, Truman, Nixon,
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Bush , Clinton, and Obama. The Faiths HEADING TO EUROPE: This year is the dropping a ball. Philipp of the Postwar Presidents by David th anniversary of the signing of a Blom’s Fracture: Life & Holmes (University of great document, and Stephen Church’s Culture in the West, Georgia Press, ) King John: And the Road to Magna Carta - (Basic, takes readers from shows how John’s sub- ) shows how the Truman through Obama. jects forced him to sign bitter disillusion of war Allan Ryskind’s the historic semi- gave way to hedonism Hollywood Traitors: surrender. Regarding in the s and politi- Blacklisted later battles against cal movements in the s that Screenwriters, Agents of authoritarian power- built their appeal on countering deca- Stalin, Agents of Hitler wielders, Adam dence. Adam Tooze in The Deluge: The (Regnery, ) has strong content Zamoyski’s Phantom Great War, America and about s and s Terror: Political the Remaking of the moviemakers—some Paranoia and the Creation of the Global Order, - followed the Communist Modern State, - underplays (Viking, ) line so vigorously that the impact of real terror shows—most pointedly they even supported the but has fascinating in a chapter entitled - Stalin-Hitler tidbits, including Czar “The Fiasco of alliance—but scornful Alexander’s attempt Wilsonianism”—that language that will put f ollowing Napoleon’s Europe had deep-rooted o those not already defeat to turn Europe problems and U.S. good intentions were convinced of the Hollywood left’s into a Christian not enough. turpitude. federation. Ivan Eland’s Recarving Rushmore This year is also the WHILE REPORTING on a socialist conven- (Independent Institute, ) is a topsy- th anniversary of the Battle of tion a decade ago, I was surprised to turvy ranking of our Waterloo, which ended see a burgeoning alliance of Leftists best and worst presi- Napoleon’s power. and Islamists. Now, two dents as measured by Readers wanting an scholarly histories the peace, prosperity, overvieovervieww of the battle recently published by and liberty that their should turn to Waterloo the Harvard UUniversityniversity administrations bul- (HarperCollins, ) Press show how leader- warked or undercut. by Bernard Cornwall, worshipping birds fl ock Woodrow Wilson is an action-packed novel- together. Stefan Ihrig’s rightly Eland’s worst, ist turned historian. The Ataturk in the Nazi and his best (John Tyler, Grover Longest Afternoon by Imagination shows how Cleveland, Martin Van Buren, and Brendan Simms (Basic, Hitler, who cherished his bust of Rutherford B. Hayes) may get you think- ) tells the story of Turkish strongman Mustafa Kemal ing about individuals long forgotten. how German sol- Ataturk, modeled his dictatorship on Eland gets really weird when he calls diers at La Haye Sainte Ataturk and admired his exiling of Jimmy Carter “our best modern presi- farmhouse decided the Greeks and execution of dent,” but Carter does deserve credit for contest by beating o priests. his marital faithfulness. waves of French The other book, Richard Smith’s On infantry. David Motadel’s Islam His Own Terms: A Life of Christian Caryl’s Strange Rebels: and Nazi Germany’s Nelson Rockefeller and the Birth of the st Century War, with its pages (Random House, ) (Basic, ) shows how Margaret of footnotes, will be the extensively profi les the Thatcher brought defi nitive scholarly man who desperately England back from the study of Hitler’s attempt wanted to be president grave and John Paul II’s to build a Muslim alliance on the basis but died with his boots energy began digging of shared enemies (particularly Jews o , apparently su ering a massive the grave of the Soviet and the British) and willingness to heart attack while committing adultery. Union. Caryl also murder. Motadel shows how Hitler in Rockefeller once said, “When you think juggles stories of his Berlin bunker, as the Third Reich of what I had, what else was there to Afghanistan, Iran, and crumbled, mourned missed opportuni- aspire to?” Deng Xiaoping without ties: “All Islam vibrated at the news of
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13 HISTORY BOOKS.indd 50 6/5/15 4:38 PM our victories. … Just think what we Your Will could have done to help them, even to incite them, as would have been both our duty and our interest.” Be Done Hitler learned from Turkey’s murder of Armenians how he could get away with murdering Jews, and Ronald Suny’s A History of the Armenian Genocide (Princeton, ) On Earth. tells the miserable story well. One Muslim o cial, Sukri Bey, summa- Pray for the World rized a survival of A new prayer resource from the fi ttest ration- Operation World ale: “It is the continual battle between the Muslims and the Armenians that is now being “This book gives a picture fi nally fought. The weaker of the of every country of the world two must be the one to go.” Suny’s summary: “O cers, o cials, and and the state of the church ordinary people participated in and the lost. May it stimulate mass killing, plundering, and rape much-informed prayer that for myriad reasons, from sadism to personal profi teering to fulfi ll- receives answers!” ment of duty.” While most Jews in Europe From the foreword by went to their Holocaust deaths PATRICK JOHNSTONE without battling back, Jews in British-mandated Palestine fought for their lives with every weapon they had: Scholar Bruce Ho man tells that savage story in Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, - (Knopf, ). Had the British not chosen to appease Hitler and Arabs, hundreds of thou- sands of lives could have been saved: That road not taken plays into Je rey Gurock’s The Holocaust Averted: An Alternate History of American Jewry, - (Rutgers, ). A
[email protected] @MarvinOlasky ivpress.com/prayfortheworld
13 HISTORY BOOKS.indd 51 6/5/15 4:03 PM World Pray for the World #11123.indd 1 5/27/15 8:33 AM 13 RTF.indd 52 6/5/15 4:09 PM BOOKS
Spreading the words A Taiwanese publishing group is on the lookout for Reformed books to translate into Chinese
by ANGELA LU IN TAIPEI photos by Tim Kao/Genesis
ucked in a nondescript megachurch pastor Stephen Taipei alleyway crowded Tong, whose sermons, DVDs, Twith parked cars and rallies, and books have a wide scooters, the White Horse Inn reach all over Southeast Asia. coffee shop sits under a weath- Still, Taiwan’s population is erworn apartment building less than 5 percent Protestant next to a hardware store. or Catholic, and only 35 small Inside is typical fare: cappucci- churches claim to be distinctly nos, milk tea, free Wi-Fi, and Reformed. curry chicken lunch combos. RTF now focuses on China But the shelves lining the walls as both an evangelical opportu- contain Chinese translations of nity and an untapped market to books familiar to many keep the organization afloat. American Christians, particu- Every type of Christianity is larly those in Reformed circles: growing in China—the “local” John Piper’s The Pleasures of church movement, charismatic God, Charles Spurgeon’s churches, and even cults claim- Sovereign Grace Sermons, and ing the name of Christ—and even Rosaria Champagne some churches in urban cities Butterfield’s The Secret have turned to Reformed Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. theology. While customers in Beyond the overflow room Taiwan might buy two books, of the café is the office of some customers in China buy Reformation Translation 200 and resell most at a higher Fellowship Press (RTF), a price. For such bulk orders, publishing group that has RTF offers a 50 percent translated famous works into discount to encourage legal Chinese since 1949. RTF began The White Horse Inn café and bookstore, purchases, as some Chinese publishing works in 1949 from a small with RTF director Ian Peng in his office. will buy one copy of an RTF book, copy office in southern China, but it illegally, and sell it for a fifth of the Communist troops forced a move to Now it’s publishing 12 books per year price online. Hong Kong. RTF in 1968 found a home with a staff that’s entirely Taiwanese. RTF also works with publishers in Taipei and eventually published 80 Taiwanese interest in Reformed within China to secure Chinese ISBN titles, but nearly floundered in 2004 theology has increased thanks to the numbers to sell the books inside of after the sudden death of its director. influence of 75-year-old Indonesian China. Sending religious books—or any
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foreign books—into China has not always been easy, as the government will at times stop shipments from entering the mainland. Still, in the ‘Selling a lifestyle’ storage room workers carefully wrap Specialized bookstores like White Horse Inn are common in Taiwan, which has a stacks of books in bubble wrap and large reading culture even as young people walk down the sidewalks and sit on the pack them into cardboard boxes subway with their heads craned over their glowing screens. One Taipei tourist spot, headed to China. the 24-hour Eslite bookworm haven, is withstanding the relentless digitization of The press’s newest translation the publishing industry that has crippled American bookstore chains like Borders project also has China’s needs in and Barnes & Noble: As the clock ticked toward midnight one evening, customers mind. Laid out on a display table at strolled around the display tables, casually fl ipping through books. the co ee shop are colorful craft cut- Eslite Group, which has more than 40 bookstores in Taiwan, also runs artsy outs, a children’s worship CD, and department stores, wine cellars, galleries, movie theaters, and even a hotel: Its Sunday school teacher’s manuals. revenue in 2013 was $428 million. Even in the bookstore the products weren’t just Called Bible books, as glossy cookbooks sat on display Building next to pork jerky, apple chips, and bottles of Blocks, the soy sauce. On every step, every chair, and curriculum even on the mahogany fl oors by the book- will teach shelves, readers crouched over the paper- through the and-ink books in their hands. Westminster Eslite had at least one often dog-eared Shorter copy of each book available for patrons to Catechism in read. The rest stayed wrapped in plastic so the course of as to remain pristine for potential buyers. A eight years. constant line at the checkout counter meant Translators the bookstore must be making some money, have fi nished yet the customers I spoke with were not only part of intent on purchasing books. One college the cate- student reading an art design book at 2 a.m. chism so far, said she’d come to take a break from study- but local ing, and if she found a book she liked, she’d churches of go online to buy it cheaper. many theological leanings are inter- Students sit between shelves After the in-store café closed at 1:30 a.m. ested because the material is more reading books in the wee hours at the bookstore quieted, yet readers still fi lled a Taipei Eslite bookstore. gospel-focused than the other curric- every nook and cranny—I almost stumbled ulum available. over a few who sat between bookshelves. RTF’s seven sta members meet to Earlier it was diff icult to hear over the chatter, but now the soft classical music decide which books to translate. They seemed to be on full blast and the fl oorboards squeaked with every footfall. Penny ask whether books are well-known Yong, a tourist from Malaysia I spoke to at 3 a.m., held a book in one hand and her and infl uential, whether they have suitcase in the other. She had just landed in Taipei and camped out in the book- stood the test of time, and whether store for a few hours before planning to board a train at 4 a.m. they touch on topics relevant to “[Eslite] creates the feeling that you’re part of the literary class,” said Yong, Chinese-speaking readers. who works for a Malaysian publishing house and hopes to open her own bookstore “Relevance” pushed Butterfi eld’s one day: “It’s selling a lifestyle.” She noted that unlike reading e-books or buying book to the front of the list, as homo- books online, physical bookstores can create a sense of community—even if that sexuality is currently a hot topic in just means sitting 10 feet away from another human quietly reading books past Taiwan as well. Once RTF has chosen midnight. a book, it buys the exclusive copy- By 4:30 a.m. all had left except for the nocturnal, students, travelers without rights from the author and hires places to stay, and perhaps a stray journalist trying to fi gure out the secrets of translators. Because the books often Eslite. Yet bibliophiles should breathe easy knowing the future of physical books CHANGA/EPA/NEWSCOM contain specialized theological seems to be in good hands. At 5 a.m. two preteen girls sat with their dad reading a terminology, three editors scour over stack of novels. At one point the dad rested his head in his arms, pleading with his each line, making sure the translated daughters to leave, but one of the girls in pigtails whispered back: “Not yet, I still copy is as close to the original as haven’t fi nished this book yet!” —A.L. possible. A
WORLD 54 JUNE 27, 2015 [email protected] @angela818
13 RTF.indd 54 6/5/15 4:23 PM 6/8/15 10:08 AM
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CHANGA/EPA/NEWSCOM Church, Inc. As the American church becomes more evangelical, mainline denominations with empty buildings enter the real estate business
he Church of the Intercession is a beautiful stone building con- structed in 1915, with vaulted ceilings, large stained glass windows, and a nave that could seat several hundred. It now needs $1 million in repairs, and its members face difficult choices. Outside this Episcopal church in Harlem is its sweeping ceme- tery that includes the grave of naturalist John Audubon. Inside on a TSunday only 42 worshippers, including the choir, were present. Almost every- one was elderly. There were three canes, one walker, and one child. Those 42 seemed a megachurch in comparison with the congregation across the street in North Presbyterian Church (PCUSA). In its historic stone building Pastor Carmen Mason-Browne preached to an audience of six women in a room with space for several hundred. The women weren’t even sitting together, but spaced like strangers on an empty train. Over clanking radiators Browne preached on the television show Call the Midwife and how it revealed the importance of women. The sanctuary had beauti- ful stained glass windows and sweeping wooden pews and a balcony; but paint peeled off the walls, and duct tape covered frayed patches on the carpet. The church, like its Episcopal neighbor, had a thermometer poster in the back to raise money for building repairs. The church was shooting for $20,000 and had raised $3,000 so far. Overall the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) shed about 90,000 members, or 5 percent of its membership, in 2013 according to its latest report. The denomi- nation’s membership has fallen 27 percent over the last decade. Other mainline denominations, including The Episcopal Church and The United Methodist Church, are also seeing decades-long declines in attendance and membership. With dwindling and aging congregants, many mainline churches, often with high-value historic properties, are becoming real estate holders. When they
by Emily Belz in New York
56 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015
13 MAINLINE CHURCHES.indd 56 6/9/15 10:11 AM The 148-year-old Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Brooklyn sold for $20 million to a real estate developer.
Marilynn K. Yee/Genesis
JUNE 27, 2015 WORLD 57
13 MAINLINE CHURCHES.indd 57 6/9/15 10:09 AM struggle to finance their massive, empty historic buildings they often sell them off, and usually to developers instead of other churches.
he American church overall is not booming. The percentage of the U.S. population that identifies as Christian is declining, according to a recent study from the Pew Research Center, down 7 points from the last Tsurvey in 2007. But the American church is becoming more evangelical, according to the survey. In cities like New York, evangelical churches without their own properties are multiplying. The fastest-growing churches in New York are young, evangelical, and meeting in places like school gyms and the Best Buy Theater in Times Square. Evangelical leaders say the disconcerting Pew survey shows a more theologically committed church as people shed the denominations they were merely born into. “What’s disappearing is cultural Christianity,” said Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, about the Pew survey. That interpretation is supported by Pew’s surveys: Weekly church attendance has held mostly steady over the last decade. As mainline churches shed parishioners, they are shedding church buildings. In September, the Church of the Redeemer, an Episcopal church in downtown Brooklyn, sold for $20 million to a real estate developer. Lawrence Provenzano, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, which owned the building, explained the decision: “It became clear in a short time there were no realistic prospects for a large increase in donations or in members that could have covered immediate and ongoing expenses.” The historic church, which has a mosaic in the walls of the subway station there, sits in one of the priciest neighbor- hoods in Brooklyn. The developer will likely raze the building. The story repeats all over the city. Christ Lutheran Church in Manhattan sold to a real estate developer, and a new seven- story condo building will open in its place this winter. St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brooklyn also sold to a `1 developer: It will be a building with 99 apartments. The Episcopal Church (TEC) is working on handling its assets more as investments when a congregation disappears. Bishop Stacy Sauls, the chief (1) Church of the Intercession in Harlem. operating officer of The Episcopal Church, said he thinks it is “unwise” for churches (2) St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brooklyn. (3) Pastor Carl Lentz leads a simply to liquidate their real estate to pay expenses. The denomination will be Hillsong service at Irving Plaza in New York. offering more financial advice for churches to handle their assets like investments. Sauls says they should be keeping the real estate to generate revenue for the church, like leasing property. Most churches rely on their members when making is stepping down after a decade charac- real estate decisions, Sauls said, and “complex real estate deals” are often beyond terized by thousands of churches, and in the expertise of members. The denomination hopes to offer that expertise. some cases entire dioceses, leaving the “We’re just beginning to work on that,” he said. “I think we can be much smarter.” denomination over its embrace of theo- The denomination doesn’t pay for buildings if congregations can’t support them, logical liberalism. The congregations, and it also doesn’t necessarily benefit from these church sales. Episcopal dioceses even if they had the means to buy their typically donate about 20 percent of donations to the larger denomination, and buildings, in most cases had to leave
that would likely include revenue from property sales. But people who have their properties with the diocese of the Ma 1 & 2: observed Episcopal finances closely, like Allan Haley who has served as an attorney denomination. g/ap r er for departing dioceses in these property disputes, don’t think the denomination at Schori has said in the past, in regard i l b y nn large is seeing big benefits from property sales. to departing congregations, that she ne K. Fi a Yee “They evidence a failing institution,” said Haley. doesn’t want TEC to “be in the business n Ti /g
Selling buildings is “something we wouldn’t like to see,” said Sauls. of setting up competitors.” Sauls said g: ene on
Under Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, TEC has also spent tens of TEC would sell property to departing s sis ll
millions on litigation over the properties, Haley has estimated. This June, Schori congregations if they didn’t associate Hi
58 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015
13 MAINLINE CHURCHES.indd 58 6/9/15 10:19 AM Other mainline denominations are going through the same demographic shifts as The Episcopal Church. One Methodist church in Queens is fighting the aging, theologically liberal trend. Glendale United Methodist Church is a collection of other mainline congregations that have merged into one. Most of the congregants are elderly. One member fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Twelve-year-old Zara counted those in the youth group on her hand: one, two, three, four, five. Five. “When I was growing up, it was a lot of kids, teenagers,” said Lorraine Miller, a longtime lay leader at the church. “Generally speaking, there are not as many young people coming to church as there used to be. My grandkids aren’t coming to church any- more. They went to college and they didn’t come back.” At Glendale’s lively service one Sunday, after Pastor Phil Hardt preached his sermon, he asked his congregation: “Who can you call this week? Who’s been away from the church?” Hardt is working on a turnaround. He heads up the Wesley `2 Fellowship, a group of theologically conservative pastors within the New York conference of the UMC. He is working to revitalize his church first, and he hopes, the conference and the denomi- nation with the work of the other pastors in his group. The church has rented its space to other non-English-speaking evangelical churches. “People in the conference kind of know where I stand,” he said. “It’s viewed as an evangelical church. … The idea is to be a seed for renewal, to stay no matter what—pretty much no matter what.” Meanwhile, other evangelical churches are blooming in New York. Demographic researcher Tony Carnes, who has tracked religious trends in New York for decades, unofficially listed the Protestant churches he thought might be growing the fastest: New Life Fellowship in Queens, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Trinity Grace Church, Church of Grace to the Fujianese People (a Chinese church), First Corinthians Baptist Church in Harlem, and Hillsong Church NYC. Trinity Grace and Hillsong are the newest churches on the list. Hillsong, a plant of the Australian megachurch, has exploded `3 since its start in 2010. About 7,000 young people attend weekly services. Both Hillsong and Trinity Grace have very young con- gregations. The first few years Hillsong met in New York, the themselves with “another Anglican church moved from building to building, and at one location attendees had to bishop.” He added that TEC would climb many flights of stairs. happily sell to other churches from A Hillsong service is the opposite in every way of the dusty, empty mainline other denominations, although that has services I attended. After passing through security and about 30 greeters, young happened rarely. The church has sold people in tight jeans and fedoras packed into a service in a theater in Times property to a few departing congrega- Square. Hillsong has five services on Sundays in that location, and another five at a tions that join the Anglican Ordinariate theater downtown. As the Times Square service let out that Sunday, people were in in the Roman Catholic Church or turn a line around the block waiting for the next service that was still 45 minutes away. nondenominational. Hillsong lacks the meaty liturgy of, say, The Episcopal Church. The sermon from The newly formed American Anglican Pastor John Termini had self-help overtones (“Thinking inside the box will keep Council (the “competitors”) now advises your outcome inside the box”), although the pastors repeatedly emphasize the churches leaving TEC to let their property importance of God’s Word and that salvation comes only through knowing Jesus.
Ma 1 & 2: go. Courts have almost never sided with “Maybe you don’t know why you stumbled in here, but maybe it’s just to hear individual Anglican congregations in this one thing: Jesus died on the cross for you and rose from the dead for you,” said g/ap r er i these property battles. “There’s a benefit Pastor Joel Houston, opening the service. l b y nn ne to not fighting,” said Robert Lundy, After the service people snapped pictures in front of the church’s LCD sign that K. Fi a Yee n spokesman for the American Anglican said, “Welcome Home.” Instead of the fusty church “information table,” Hillsong Ti /g
g: Council. “Those who left the keys on the has an “info bar,” where people wanting to be baptized can enter their information ene on
s table avoided a lot of the difficulty of on iPads. In a packed “welcome lounge” off the theater, volunteers serve strawberry- sis ll
Hi going through protracted legal disputes.” infused water to visitors. The church has a coat check.
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Construction Another non- at the former denominational Christ Lutheran Church in evangelical Manhattan. church is boom- ing in New York. Trinity Grace Church started in and now has churches around the city, some with multi- ple services. The congregants are young, and they pack out rented spaces from schools to other churches. Despite its size, Trinity Grace has no real estate. Some of Trinity Grace’s parishes rent from historic churches, like St. Paul’s German Evangelical Lutheran Church, founded in , in Chelsea. One parish rents from a Seventh-day Adventist church, a convenient option for churches who need space on Sundays. And Redeemer rented space for its service in the evenings from First Sociologist George Yancey unun-- “Yancey urges us to get in the war Baptist Church on the Upper West packs the underlying perspectives in an honorable way, adding our Side, until Redeemer completed and root causes of “Christiano-“Christiano- courage and insight for cultural sursur-- constructing a building of its own. phobia,” or intense anti-Christian vival and renewal. At times we’re to Redeemer is one relatively hostility. He considers to what fight fire with fire. That might mean new evangelical church that has extent Christians have themselves calling out bigotry and hate where its own real estate for its Upper contributed to this animosity and you see it. Love speaks. Love tells the West Side congregation, a explores how we can respond truth. Love risks. Love does not fail.” , -square-foot space it bought
and retrofi tted for $ . million. MARILYNN more constructively, defusing KELLY MONROE KULLBERG, New York City Councilman tensions and working toward the founder of the America Conservancy and Fernando Cabrera said he could
common good. the Veritas Forum and author of Finding K.
God at Harvard not recall another church that had YEE/GENESIS built a building in Manhattan in the last decade or two. A —with reporting from Daniel James Devine
60 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015 [email protected] @emlybelz IVPRESS.COM/HOSTILE
13World, MAINLINE Hostile CHURCHES.indd Environment #11077.indd 60 1 5/26/15 2:10 PM 6/9/15 10:14 AM 6/9/15 4:14 PM 13 MAINLINE CHURCHES.indd 61
Marilynn K. Yee/genesis World 07 15 Full Page.indd 1 World 0715 FullPage.indd1 13 SCIENCE and TECH.indd 62 a top-qualityline-upofChristianmarketplaceleadersfromacrossNorthAmerica. of Coca-ColaBottlingCompanyConsolidated(NASDAQ).Ouruniqueconferencefeatures This year’s KeynoteBanquetspeakerisJ.FrankHarrisonIII,Chairman&CEO America’s largestgathering ofChristian BusinessCEOs. This isa a top-qualityline-upofChristianmarketplaceleadersfromacrossNorthAmerica. of Coca-ColaBottlingCompanyConsolidated(NASDAQ).Ouruniqueconferencefeatures This year’s KeynoteBanquetspeakerisJ.FrankHarrisonIII,Chairman&CEO America’s This • Effective OrganizationalDevelopment Methods • BeneficialCEOCommunication Tactics • Remaining“Mission-True” • ProfitablyEngagingtheMillennialGeneration • CompellingBusiness&LifeTurnarounds • Reaching StakeholderCommunitieswithMinistry • Establishing Winning, God-HonoringWorkCultures • Effective OrganizationalDevelopment Methods • BeneficialCEOCommunication Tactics • Remaining“Mission-True” • ProfitablyEngagingtheMillennialGeneration • CompellingBusiness&LifeTurnarounds • Reaching StakeholderCommunitieswithMinistry • Establishing Winning, God-HonoringWorkCultures is a conferencenottobemissed... conference Don’t MissThisConference! largest Don’t MissThisConference! Limited America’s largest gathering ofChristianBusiness CEOs Knowledge You’ll BringHome to Your Business&Life Limited America’s largest ofChristianBusinessgathering CEOs Knowledge You’ll BringHome to Your Business&Life $75 Off Call $75 Off GREAT Businesses for aGREATER Purpose™ Christian CEOs &Owners Building gathering Call GREAT Businesses for aGREATER Purpose™ Christian CEOs &Owners Building not 336.841.7100 if 336.841.7100 if you register beforeAugust 15, 2015 to you register beforeAugust 15, 2015 Seating. Register Now! Seating. RegisterNow! be of missed... Christian or visit C12Group.com or visit C12Group.com LEADERS RECLAIMING TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERS RECLAIMING TRANSFORMATIONAL • The KeytoTrueServant Leadership • Story-Telling toDrive Culture &Team Alignment • Adopting Personal HealthDisciplines • PracticalWays toLeverage OperationalExcellence • Intergenerational TransitionwhileSustainingExcellence • Managing WorkplaceHealthcareToday • The KeytoTrueServant Leadership • Story-Telling toDrive Culture&Team Alignment • Adopting Personal HealthDisciplines • PracticalWays toLeverage OperationalExcellence • Intergenerational TransitionwhileSustainingExcellence • Managing WorkplaceHealthcareToday & KingdomStewardship 2015 Christian Leaders Conference & KingdomStewardship 2015 Christian Leaders Conference Hyatt Orlando Grand Cypress Hyatt Orlando Grand Cypress THE CULTURE THE CULTURE October 1-3,2015 Business October 1-3,2015 CEOs.
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Øystein Alsaker/flickr, modified by world NOTEBOOK SCIENCE / TECHNOLOGY / SPORTS / HOUSES OF GOD / RELIGION
SCIENCE Nearly one-quarter of Americans The number of women aged 40 to 44 R over age 65 are at risk of becom- who are childless has nearly doubled ing “elder orphans,” a new term used since that time. to describe aging people who are single Elder orphans face a wide range of Old and and childless, according to a study potential difficulties, including health conducted at the geriatric and pallia- issues, mental health decline, and pre- world
by tive medicine department of the North mature death. Research author Maria Shore-LIJ Health System in New York. Torroella Carney said they will require
modified alone Increasing numbers of single more community and social services, Many in the people who do not have children are emergency response, and education. ickr, ‘me generation’ face heading into their senior years alone. Although it is hard to draw conclusions ker/fl a a lonely future One-third of Americans between the based on one study, it is likely that
Als ages of 45 and 63 are single, an decisions to remain childless, which by Julie Borg increase of 50 percent since 1980. increased with the baby boom Øystein
g Visit our website—wng.org—for breaking news and more JUNE 27, 2015 WORLD 63
13 SCIENCE and TECH.indd 63 6/8/15 9:15 AM NOTEBOOK SCIENCE
generation born between With the advent of the 1946 and 1964, are a pill, having sex no longer contributing factor. “My had to mean having generation was one of the babies; with legalized first that elected not to abortion, becoming have children,” Joyce pregnant no longer had Varner, director of the to mean becoming a par- Adult-Geron Primary Care ent. Environmentalists, Nurse Practitioner pro- meanwhile, sounded the gram at the University of alarm about a popula- South Alabama, told CNN. tion explosion, claiming In the blood Varner began to see the earth didn’t have Each year more than the problem surfacing in enough resources for 14,000 women in the the 1990s. “I see a lot of were a burden,” said Glenn everybody and we were United States die of sadness and regret on the Stanton, director of Family ruining our world. The ovarian cancer, a disease part of the elderly people Formation Studies at Focus ideological impact of often undetected in the who decided not to have on the Family. This gener- those warnings made early stages because children,” she said. “A lot ation became known as remaining childless symptoms frequently of fear. ‘How are we going the “Me generation,” seem like a virtue, do not appear until it is to get care? Is there going spawning a societal deval- Stanton said. But it was well-advanced. Current to be anyone with me at uation of children and the blown out of proportion. screening methods have not decreased the death the end of life?’” double-income, no-kids The population bomb rate. “It comes down to the group that didn’t want to never exploded. And But now, researchers chickens have come home be tied down. They didn’t now a significant num- at the University College to roost for people who want children to get in ber of the Me generation London (UCL) have devel- were young in the ’70s and the way of “their self- are facing their senior oped a blood test for ’80s and thought children actualization,” he said. years alone. ovarian cancer that tracks changing levels of the protein CA-125. The new test correctly Smoke screen diagnosed 86 percent E-cigarettes, once promoted as an aid to stop smoking, are not reducing the number of teen of deadly and invasive smokers. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the epithelial ovarian cancer number of middle- and high-school students using e-cigarettes has tripled in just one year, cases during the 14-year from 660,000 to 2 million students between 2013 and 2014. Overall tobacco use has not study—twice as many declined in the last three years. Nearly one-quarter of high-school and 7 percent of middle- cases as conventional school students use some type of tobacco product. screening methods are E-cigarettes are not harmless. They combine a poisonous substance with unsafe chemical able to pick up, according stairs: Jimmy mixtures, said Garry Sigman, director of the Loyola University Health System Adolescent to The Independent. Medicine Program. The study included
“We want parents to know that nicotine is dangerous for kids at any age, whether it’s an more than 200,000 post- F am/isto e-cigarette, hookah, cigarette, or cigar,” said CDC director Tom Frieden. “Adolescence is a menopausal women, aged critical time for brain develop- 50 and above, randomly ck • ment. Nicotine exposure at a assigned to different E young age may cause lasting screening strategies. -cigar harm to brain development, “While this is a significant ette: handout • b handout ette: promote addiction, and lead to achievement, we need to sustained tobacco use.” wait until later this year The modern aspect of when the final analysis of e-cigarettes appeals to the trial is completed to l
adolescents whose world know whether the cancers draw ood revolves around technology and detected through screen- electronics. “The development ing were caught early
and marketing of e-cigarettes enough to save lives,” : andresr/i has the potential of hooking a said UCL professor Usha whole new generation on nico- Menon. —J.B. tine,” Sigman said. —J.B. stock graffiti: news.com.au • crossbeams: handout • space station: combination of nasa photos/getty images
64 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015 Download WORLD’s iPad app today; details at wng.org/iPad
13 SCIENCE and TECH.indd 64 g Visit our website—wng.org—for breaking news and more6/8/15 9:11 AM Download WORLD’s iPad app today; details at wng.org/iPad d Listen to WORLD on the radio at worldandeverything.com Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter: @WORLD_mag TECHNOLOGY NOTEBOOK Creative construction Engineer hopes a new type of toy will pry older children from video games by Michael Cochrane
Creative building toys R such as Legos and Duplos seem to fascinate young children—right up to the age when they migrate to more passive video games. Electrical engineer Graffiti Charles Sharman noticed this trend in the children he sniffer taught in Sunday school and Vandalism of railcars is a wished there was a building worldwide problem. toy that appealed to older Removing graffiti spray kids and encouraged them painted on train cars is to create rather than be the website, can make an shows examples that expensive and catching the passively entertained. airplane, a train, a house, include an outdoor pet run, perpetrators—called So he designed it himself. and a mountain. a book prop, and an ele- “taggers”—is notoriously difficult. But Australia’s Sharman’s concept, Sharman also designed vated trash can holder. Sydney Trains is fighting called Crossbeams, is what his building toy concept so Kits are available with back with a new technol- he refers to in his company the structures would be instructions for building ogy that sniffs out spray website as a creating toy sturdy. He noticed that in anything from a 123-piece paint vapor. rather than an assembly traditional building toys, the fighter jet at $26.02, to a The project, called toy. He researched building force required to join the 1,482-piece model of the “Mousetrap,” uses chemi- toys and found that many of pieces is equal to the sepa- Brooklyn Bridge at $266.03. cal sensors to detect them have a huge number ration force, which signifi- But Sharman says he is vapors from taggers’ paint of specialized pieces such cantly limits the strength of committed to keeping costs cans and marker pens. as those for airplanes, cars, the joints and the complex- down by limiting the number Once the vapors alert the or special angles and ity of the structures. of distinct pieces in a model. electronic “nose,” the shapes. He believed that too Crossbeams solves this “Once you own a few system cues live cameras many piece types tended to problem with joints that thousand pieces, you can at the location to capture stairs: Jimmy build nearly anything,” he images of the vandals and stifle creativity. are connected in a simple, forward them to police. Crossbeams claims it two-step process involving says. “And you no longer According to the New requires only 18 distinct a slight twist of a small need to purchase new
F South Wales website, the pieces to create the frames ring. The resulting joints pieces. In our opinion, am/ system has so far led to the that form the basis for are strong enough to create however, increasing your i stock • stock arrest of more than 30 many types of structures. models with real function- creativity is more important offenders. —M.C. The same set, according to ality. The product website than increasing our profits.” E -cigar ette: handout • b handout ette:
Clearing a path The International Space Station (ISS) has altered its trajectory many times over the years to avoid l ood draw ood collisions with space debris. But nearly 3,000 tons of space junk orbiting the earth make it difficult for the ISS to step out of the way, and an alternative may be for the ISS simply to blast dangerous space debris with a laser cannon. Researchers from Japan’s Riken Computational Astrophysics Laboratory are proposing a space-debris tracking system : andresr/ coupled with a 100,000-watt ultraviolet laser that would vaporize the surface of a target, pushing it away from the station and toward the atmosphere. A smaller-wattage proof-of-concept laser is scheduled to be delivered to the ISS as early as 2017. —M.C. istock graffiti: news.com.au • crossbeams: handout • space station: combination of nasa photos/getty images
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13 SCIENCE and TECH.indd 65 6/9/15 4:30 PM NOTEBOOK SPORTS
Worldview USA unifi ed winner CHRISTIAN PLAYERS SEEK TO HELP TEAMMATES WIN The day Bruce Jenner THE WOMEN’S WORLD CUP by Andrew Branch debuted as “Caitlyn,” ESPN announced that U.S. Women’s Jenner will receive in July Heath (left) R National Team play- the Arthur Ashe Courage ers Lauren Holiday and Award, named for the Tobin Heath are products tennis great who fought of a Christian soccer sub- both racism and AIDS. culture. They played on Jenner won over the likes the Under- team of Iraq war vet and ampu- at the FIFA Women’s tee Noah Galloway and World Championship, Lauren Hill, the 19-year- where virtually “the entire old basketball player who team” was Christian, publicly fought terminal Holiday said. Coach Tim cancer until her April Schulz’s ability to laugh death. (Hill and Galloway and cry over things of were not runners-up, as faith, she told journalist many had stated.) Chad Bonham, awakened her own faith from cul- and Abby Wambach and about their chosen tural to personal. coach Jill Ellis all identify identities. At least four professing as lesbians. As the tournament pro- Christians join hands on A national team, of gresses, Heath says, she the current team, includ- necessity, creates a func- will use her gifts as wor- ing Amy Rodriguez and tional pluralism with ship. Holiday says she will Heather O’Reilly, as the mutual respect and prac- seek not only to live so that U.S. team tries to get back tical sacrifi cial love as people notice a di erence, to the World Cup Final July teammates work toward a but to play that way too. So , where the United States common goal. To date, far, defying the cultural
women lost to Japan in nothing has publicly chal- moment, the U.S. women Y. HUH/AP NAM • MERULLO: IMAGES LYONS/GETTY ANDY • HILL: IMAGES LEFF/GETTY MITCHELL HEATH: . In World Cup defeat lenged that unity for the have again developed the or gold medal glory, U.S. women. Holiday sees unity that comes through “when I walk away my her own role as that of hard work and vulnerable identity is still the same,” Barnabas from Acts, relationships. “That’s just This makes the second Holiday told Fellowship of known as Son of why I love team sports,” straight year ESPN has Christian Athletes. “I’m Encouragement. She and Heath told Bonham. “It’s a used the award to explic- still a follower of Jesus Heath are arguably more great example of that self- itly endorse its sexual Christ.” In contrast, team open about faith than lessness that I think is worldview. In raising leaders Megan Rapinoe their teammates are really pleasing to God.” awareness about gender dysphoria and the pain which suff erers face, Man knows not his time ESPN invoked words like “progress” and “educate The last time the Chicago Cubs played in the World Series was in people.” Last year’s win- 1945, not long after V-J day, in a losing eff ort to Detroit. Deferred ner was Michael Sam, a from the military for color blindness, Lennie Merullo was on the fi eld prospective NFL player for three of the games in that series. He was the oldest living Cub when he died May 30 at age 98. Though never an All-Star, fans loved who “came out” leading him, honoring him last year at Wrigley Field’s 100th anniversary. up to the draft. Ashe’s Merullo’s eldest son, Len Jr., retains the nickname “Boots,” which family championed both The Chicago Daily News penned after his father made four errors selections. —A.B. in one 1942 inning upon news his wife had given birth. —A.B. FEATURES/AP REX
66 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015 d Listen to WORLD on the radio at worldandeverything.com
13 SPORTS and HOG.indd 66 g Visit our website—wng.org—for breaking news and more6/10/15 9:50 AM Download WORLD’s iPad app today; details at wng.org/iPad d Listen to WORLD on the radio at worldandeverything.com Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter: @WORLD_mag HOUSES OF GOD NOTEBOOK HEATH: MITCHELL LEFF/GETTY IMAGES • HILL: ANDY LYONS/GETTY IMAGES • MERULLO: NAM Y. HUH/AP NAM • MERULLO: IMAGES LYONS/GETTY ANDY • HILL: IMAGES LEFF/GETTY MITCHELL HEATH:
LEWES, EAST SUSSEX, ENGLAND Parishioners join Rev. Peter Owen Jones as he lights the beacon at Firle Beacon hill on May 23. Church of England clergymen lit a chain of beacons across the Diocese of Chichester to celebrate Pentecost and, according to Bishop Richard Jackson, to “remind the communities they serve of the reason Pentecost happened in the fi rst place.” FEATURES/AP REX
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A Lipan sued to get them back. Apache Some Native powwow Americans receive special permits to possess eagle feathers if they are members of federally recognized tribes, but the Lipan Apache Tribe lacks such recognition. The district court sided with the government, granting summary judgment. Then along came Hobby Lobby, last June’s landmark Supreme Court decision. It o ers an important inter- pretation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a law requiring strict scrutiny when a generally applicable law creates a substantial burden for the free exer- cise of religion. Hobby Lobby says the Legal eagle feathers? government should seek the least HOBBY LOBBY DECISION GIVES NEW LIFE TO NATIVE restrictive means of furthering a AMERICAN LAWSUITS compelling state interest. by James Bruce Given Hobby Lobby and other prece- dents, the th Circuit reversed the Native Americans are pushing feather is a religious, not just a cultural, earlier decision and remanded the R back against attempts to keep symbol: “The eagle is the one that fl ies case back to the district court. The th them from wearing eagle feathers. The highest to the Creator.” Becket Fund Circuit seriously questioned whether federal government restricts possession lawyer Luke Goodrich said, “The gov- the government could protect eagles of eagle feathers as part of its e ort to ernment has no business sending only by restricting feathers to permit- protect eagles. But early this month a undercover agents to raid peaceful holders from specifi c Native American California school system, under judicial Native American religious ceremonies.” tribes. pressure, allowed a high-school senior That’s what happened in The government gave Soto back his to wear an eagle feather to his gradua- when Robert Soto, a Lipan Apache and feathers this March, but Soto didn’t hold tion ceremony. Last month a federal dis- the pastor of McAllen (Texas) Grace a celebration, much less a powwow. LIPAN APACHE POWWOW: THE BECKET FUND • BOOKLET: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EVANGELICALS OF ASSOCIATION NATIONAL • BOOKLET: FUND BECKET THE POWWOW: APACHE LIPAN trict judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit Brethren Church, participated in a The government gave him a dispensa- brought by a Texas Apache who wanted powwow: A federal agent interrupted tion to keep those feathers, but he has to regain eagle feathers the government the ceremony after seeing Soto and no right to give them to anyone, even to took from him and others in . others with eagle feathers. The agent his descendants, and other members Vernon Ward Jr., of the Pit River threatened prosecution unless they of the congregation remain in legal Tribe in California, said the eagle abandoned them. They did so, but they limbo. So the lawsuit continues.
A ‘puzzling’ booklet National Association of Evangelicals president Leith Anderson says his group’s new book, When God and Science Meet, attempts “to bring faith and science onto the same page.” But Center for Science and Culture research coordinator Casey Luskin calls the booklet “puzzling,” because it seems “designed to make the reader feel good while never actually providing them with real scientifi c discussions or real MOOT COURT • June 7-13 answers to hard questions.” The book off ers a welcome interdisciplinary approach: Historian Mark Noll shares space with biologist PRESIDENCY: ARTICLE II - REACH HIGH. Dorothy Boorse and pastor John Ortberg, among others. But it is low on specifi cs and does not deal with FROM WASHINGTON TO YOU • June 7-13 the movement toward theistic evolution at some evangelical colleges. Luskin said the book off ers “a MOCK TRIAL • June 14-27 GROW DEEP. nice theological critique” of Carl Sagan’s quip that we live on an “insignifi cant planet,” but he notes, CHRIST, COMMERCE AND THE ECONOMY • June 14-20 “Sagan meant that claim also as a scientifi c one, and the booklet could be far more powerful if it also off ered a scientifi c critique of that claim, because we now know that Earth is a special planet with many LEWIS: BEYOND THE LAMP-POST • June 21-27 PATRICK HENRY COLLEGE unique features that make it ideally suited for life.” —J.B. STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE: LEVEL 1 • July 5-11 2015 TEEN LEADERSHIP CAMPS STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE: LEVEL 2 • July 12-18
68 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015 Follow us on Facebook DEBATE • July 12-25 WWW.PHCTEENCAMPS.ORG LEADERSHIP AND VOCATION • July 19-25 540.441.8105 • [email protected]
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MOOT COURT • June 7-13 PRESIDENCY: ARTICLE II - REACH HIGH. FROM WASHINGTON TO YOU • June 7-13 MOCK TRIAL • June 14-27 GROW DEEP. CHRIST, COMMERCE AND THE ECONOMY • June 14-20 LEWIS: BEYOND THE LAMP-POST • June 21-27 PATRICK HENRY COLLEGE STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE: LEVEL 1 • July 5-11 2015 TEEN LEADERSHIP CAMPS STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE: LEVEL 2 • July 12-18 DEBATE • July 12-25 WWW.PHCTEENCAMPS.ORG LEADERSHIP AND VOCATION • July 19-25 540.441.8105 • [email protected]
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MAY 16 our mothers spoke of their su erings regularly. Thank you—this gave us ‘Coverage vs. care’ more information about our past. g We should pray for more Christian doctors will- LEO & SONA SETIAN / SILOAM SPRINGS, ARK. ing to look past the red tape to people and their needs. We should support medical school students: g True stories such as these make me They are choosing a challenging profession, and we wonder why God does not put a cap need more with the faith and integrity to lessen the on the human capacity for evil. Come impact of future shortages. soon, Lord Jesus. CHELSEY MCNEIL ON WNG.ORG WONNIE KANG ON WNG.ORG
, I love WORLD but found this story extremely disturbing in its graphic descriptions of torture, rape, and , I’m sorry that Jackie LaBaron does born in the old Armenia around murder. not have hearing aids for both ears, and uprooted as teens. We saw in them JEANNINE LIEBMANN / EUREKA, MO. but not that she takes home only $ a the huge daily adjustments they made month. Certainly Medicaid could be as they overcame a violent past. Both ‘Taking the baker’s challenge’ better, but it appears her problem is our fathers were so traumatized that g Beautiful. What if Christians were that she did not adequately prepare they never spoke of the atrocities, but known as the people who made the fi nancially for old age and became best cakes ever, even for people they dependent on the government. disagreed with? When should we take BARBARA WAGNER / HURON, OHIO Endzingeni, Swaziland a stand against sin? When others are submitted by asking us to commit it. g Washington is one of the Ellen Decker RICK FLANDERS ON WNG.ORG states that expanded Medicaid, but it doesn’t cover hearing aids: It just covers the test to let us know we need one. Some people can’t fi nd a primary care physician because so many doctors no longer accept Medicaid. This nightmare is exactly what I expected from the ACA. JOELLYN CLARK ON WNG.ORG
‘Remembering the forgotten’ , My mother was born in Istanbul four years after the killing of Armenians started and escaped with her family to America. Hebrews tells us to remember the martyrs as if we were martyred with them. You have done this honorably. JEFFREY C. DANCO / BRIDGEWATER, N.J.
, My and my wife’s parents were all
, Mail/email g Website Facebook Twitter JUNE 27, 2015 WORLD 71
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‘Outside the playbook’ teen is behind the wheel. If you have If God had intended modern, to monitor where your teens are loving, faithful, long-term same-sex driving, they should not be driving. relationships to qualify as marriage, RANDY CREWS / SPOKANE, WASH. then He would not have excluded them by definition. May 2 JAMES AIST ON FACEBOOK ‘Losing their shirts’ g Whoever said that legislating free- ‘Death by proxy’ dom costs freedom is right on! And , Why argue that small shareholders legally forcing a person to undergo should not be able to confront com- “diversity training” is tantamount to panies like Wal-Mart with important Communist brainwashing. social issues? Why shouldn’t small JIM CRAIG ON WNG.ORG shareholders be able to speak their minds? ‘Waiting to break free’ EDWARD HESS / LANSING, MICH. g Thanks for this story on Cambodia. It is always challenging and refreshing ‘Disorientation’ to be informed of what God is doing Various state governments have beyond the USA. outlawed minors’ ability to seek help DON SEDERDAHL ON WNG.ORG for dealing with same-sex attraction because they’re “too young” to decide ‘California’s drought denial’ if they need or want help. When a , This article didn’t mention that, 5-year-old boy says he wants to wear rather than keeping water on farms a dress, he is old enough to make that where it is most needed, environ- decision? mentalists in government are sending WAYLON GLUNT ON FACEBOOK much of it into the ocean to help protect endangered fish. And then ‘Harmful hype?’ California wants Colorado’s water? g The more questions climate HANK COLL / PARKER, COLO. change pushers face, the more hys- terical and aggressive they become. ‘Brain scam’ Such manipulative tactics don’t give , When Janie B. Cheaney compared the impression they are very genome mapping with phrenology, confident. she could also have mentioned STEVE ARNOLD ON WNG.ORG Francis Crick’s ridiculous belief that DNA is so complex that aliens must ‘The river of your delights’ have seeded it here. Fortunately, for g Beautifully written! In a world that those with ears to hear, God so distorts the pleasures God gives us destroyed our attempts to find the to enjoy, how sweet to stop and pon- Fountain of Youth with one simple der the delights of a spring day or any statement: “Whosoever believes in of His other handiworks. Him shall not perish, but have eternal KIM MILLER ON WNG.ORG life.” ROB CARPENTER / KERRVILLE, TEXAS ‘U-N’ , Over 50 million—I can’t begin to ‘Raw risks’ fathom that number of displaced , I’m somewhat indignant over all people. the hoopla about the dangers of raw JAN MANSFIELD / BUFFALO, N.Y. milk. There is indeed some risk; but my ancestors and family were all ‘Auto report cards’ raised on raw milk, and I have known , Many companies have offered only one person whose health was monitoring devices, but the key is to affected by its use. instill correct behavior before the W.J. McCHESNEY / NEW GALILEE, PA.
13 MAILBAG.indd 72 6/9/15 11:08 PM APRIL 18 RETIRE the ORDINARY. ‘You be the judge’ g Of course a new Christian the lacks deep spiritual understand- ing. Ana Marie Cox should neither be judged for her imma- turity nor be held up as a role ! model for other believers. Only time will tell if her walk is toward Jesus or not. JENNIFER MURRAY ON WNG.ORG VALUE | Quarryville o ers a great selection and price, the highest standard of care and growing menu of personal and ‘Forfeited struggle’ neighborhood amenities. It’s all here. , Joel Belz argued that Christians in America don’t have the courage of their convictions because they LOCATION | Quarryville’s location o ers unrivaled views recognize the cost. Sadly, most of Lancaster County’s historic hills and farms, while being an will capitulate to whatever the easy drive from Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, culture says is right, and those D.C. You’ll love your front porch! who don’t will su er tremen- dous consequences. The future will be challenging and convict- VISION | We are committed to helping each resident live ing in our morally repugnant to the fullest by providing for their spiritual, physical, society. emotional and social needs in a manner faithful to the PHILLIP WOECKENER / TALLAHASSEE, FLA. Bible and honoring our Lord, Jesus Christ ‘It’s no mystery’ Getting Muslims to the point Let’s begin the conversation. that they trust us enough to receive the gospel is the issue. A major barrier of distrust must be broken down on both sides. JOHN WILLBY ON FACEBOOK
Corrections The TV series Wayward Pines is based on a book series by Blake Crouch (“Wayward shines,” May , p. ). The fi rst Star Wars prequel came out in (“The Force is weak,” May , p. ).
LETTERS & PHOTOS , Email: [email protected] , Mail: WORLD Mailbag, PO Box 20002, Asheville, NC 28802-9998 g Website: wng.org Facebook: facebook.com/ WORLD.magazine www.Quarryville.com | 888.786.7331 Twitter: @WORLD_mag 625 Robert Fulton Highway, Quarryville, PA 17566 Please include full name and address. Letters facebook.com/QuarryvilleRetirement may be edited to yield brevity and clarity.
13 MAILBAG.indd 73 6/9/15 2:44 PM 13 SEU PETERSON.indd 74 to give inyour thenon-Christians life? upends her life.God On acountry road inEngland, astartlingencounter with living the dozens of intriguing territories, and ideological relational. both way best the to live. McKoy’s puddle jumping experiential lands her in leaves Princeton and her Kennedy-esque life of privilege to search for prowlOn the for superior definitions of Love and Truth, author the book.”this I warmly recommend spiritually nourishing. surprising narrative... “A fascinating and Dr. John Jefferson Davis, Ever wishyou hadtheright book To order adiscounted copy or to read first the chapters, visit Theological Prof. and Dept Chair, Gordon
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pokingchocolates.com memoir willdraw themin and keep themreading. well-written...” sophisticated, denseand “I kept laughing. It’s hilarious, S. Bunce, Software Engineer This delightful
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ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE Andrée seu peterson My husband helped immeasurably by offering new perspective on the decomposing paper stack: “They were your practices,” he said, salvaging the situation with one well-placed remark. I hope that this is true, at least in part. It might fascinate the reader to know that Jesus Himself was bedeviled (literally, I would say) with the notion of failure and futility. We Beyond pessimism have it on good authority, of course, that this Are a Christian’s labors on earth in vain? never slipped over into sin, for He was “in every respect … tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). But the sight Curious to peek down the road a few of the eyes posed a challenge R years to know what it feels like not to to the eye of faith with its write a column, I read the swan song of Tom counterfeit evidences of the Fleming, outgoing editor of the monthly vanity of the Messiah’s mis- Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture (June, sion. Hear the lament of a 2015). It was not happy. Thirty years of raging wordsmith (like Fleming) in against the dying of art, and corruption, and Jesus’ complaint: cupidity were rewarded with nothing but an “The Lord called me from increase in ugly art, corruption, and cupidity. the womb. … He made my Evaluating his own epistolary efforts in the mouth like a sharp sword. … fray, Fleming compares himself to satirical And he said to me, ‘You are bandleader Spike Jones (1911-1965), who my servant. …’ But I said, ‘I retired when he saw that the serious music have labored in vain; I have coming down the pike was worse than any spent my strength for nothing satire he could concoct using cowbells and ‘I have spent and vanity; yet surely my right is with the Lord, kitchen implements. Fleming complains: “If and my recompense with my God’” (Isaiah only I had followed his advice, I should have my strength 49:1-4, italics added). spared myself and my devoted handful of read- for nothing Jesus, in taking the assignment, had ers three decades of bitter satire that fell on and vanity; yet “emptied himself” (Philippians 2:7) and was blind eyes and deaf ears.” required “to be made like his brothers in every “To be (a columnist) or not to be, that is the surely my right respect” (Hebrews 2:17), so in His voluntary question.” Is Fleming correct that when all is is with the limitations He may have had to study Isaiah, said and done the conscienced writer labors for Lord, and my just like you and me, to be assured that things nothing against the forces of boorishness and would work out well in the end (see verses 5 immorality? Is he also right that in any case, recompense and 6). He went on to tell parables of unim- “readers do not have to be reminded ad nau- with my God.’ pressive seeds that grow into large bushes, seam that rap and death-metal music are toxic —Isaiah 49:4 which indicates that He understood that ser- waste for the mind and soul”? Would one or two vants of God should not “despise the day of whacks at transgenderism have been enough? small things” (Zechariah 4:10). The veteran journalist raises one argument The Fleming farewell ends with him day- for the “yes” column that sends shivers through dreaming about a retirement more focused on my soul: It is possible, he says, to be “spending Palermo than Iraq, and eating fish at a place so much time saving the planet or defending the called Il Blu while watching “the sun rises family that we have no time to plant a garden or blazing on the sea.” Before laying his quill take care of our own children. … [A]long the way down he pens his pessimistic conclusion, “I we betray our spouses and our children.” wasted time, and now doth time waste me.” Ouch! (Or to copy Chronicles’ penchant for Maybe. It is good to peek ahead and think Latin: mea culpa.) I have in the bookcase beside on how we’ve used our time; it yields a heart rrie a me three score personal essays never sent—and of wisdom (Psalm 90:12). It is also good to b never to be sent—to WORLD, each representing take heart if you find you are doing the Lord’s
krieg hours not playing with and talking to my chil- work, whatever your field of endeavor, “know- tion: dren. (More on that in some future essay urging ing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” a parents not to do as I have done.) (1 Corinthians 15:58). A illustr
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13 SEU PETERSON.indd 75 6/10/15 8:45 AM MARVIN OLASKY The Time cover provoked , letters to the editor, the most in the magazine’s history. Other magazines went with the fl ow. Easter in was on April , so that’s when Newsweek tried to increase its newsstand sales with a cover story headlined (in red letters on a black background) “The Decline and Fall of Christian America.” Time tried to increase its Christmas Rolling stones sales later that year with a Dec. cover story HOW TO GET SATISFACTION? that asked, “Is God Coming Back to Life?” Director/screenwriter Roman Polanski THE BIBLE SHOWS US understood what the purported death of God meant: In his fi lm Rosemary’s Baby, set in Fifty years ago the two greatest songs of , Polanski had protagonist Rosemary R all time (so the magazine Rolling Stone Woodhouse (played by Mia Farrow) picking declared in ) emerged just one month apart. up the “Is God Dead?” issue of Time in a The Rolling Stones’ “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” doctor’s waiting room. Many critics have (# ) came out in June . Bob Dylan’s “Like a called Rosemary’s Baby, with its Rolling Stone” (# ) emerged in July. depiction of a woman pregnant with That’s three rolling stones in one paragraph, Satan’s child, the top horror fi lm of and that same year public policy rolled errati- all time—and a life without God is certainly mean- cally, as if our legislators were stoned. The ingless at best and horrifying most of the time. United States curved toward the debtors’ prison Radical Songs, magazines, and movies led the way. that now looms, as Medicare, Medicaid, and a autonomy The Supreme Court soon went with the fl ow variety of Great Society entitlement programs has merely with its Roe v. Wade ruling in , but didn’t zipped through the most liberal Congress of spell out the philosophy behind it until another the seven decades from through . left us even abortion decision in : In Planned But the two greatest songs show an even wider more like Parenthood v. Casey, Justice Anthony Kennedy cultural swing. rolling stones. wrote that “at the heart of liberty is the right to Dylan’s song describes life in a meaningless defi ne one’s own concept of existence, of the world. He asked how it felt to be without a universe, and of the mystery of human life.” home, like a complete unknown. Dylan knew Vague spirituality has accompanied such that fi ne clothes and a fi ne school are a vanity vague jurisprudence. Countless liberal theolo- of vanities. He saw the frowns of jugglers and gians have said we can all stand in a hallway of clowns. He knew what the writer of religion without going into particular rooms— Ecclesiastes wrote , years ago: All things but remove the rooms and the hallway is no under the sun are full of weariness. longer a hallway, just an empty space. Once The Stones’ “Satisfaction” was about more beliefs are not important and only actions are than sex. Mick Jagger and others could readily real, the reason to act disappears. attain momentary physical pleasure, but con- In short, radical autonomy has merely left tentment in daily life—“when I’m driving in my us even more like rolling stones. Happily, the car ... when I’m watchin’ my TV”—eluded them. Bible repeatedly shows us how to stop rolling Life seemed meaningless (and the advent of no- and gain satisfaction: “If you walk in my stat- fault divorce and fault-fi lled but legal abortion utes and observe my commandments and do soon undercut two big satisfactions for most them … you shall eat your bread to the full and people: marriage and family). dwell in your land securely. I will give peace in Underlying both songs was the perceived the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall absence of God. In October , Time make you afraid.” reported on the tendency of trendy academics Ancient Israel had such peace only briefl y— to construct an anemic theology without God. and taught us in the process that long-term The magazine followed up six months later peace comes only with Christ. And the alterna- with an all-black cover featuring three words in tive? Lack of satisfaction, but something even red, “Is God Dead?” The Los Angeles Times in worse: “If your soul abhors my rules … I will called that startlegram one of “ maga- visit you with panic. … I will set my face against zine covers that shook the world.” you” (Leviticus :-, - ). A
76 WORLD JUNE 27, 2015 [email protected] @MarvinOlasky
13 OLASKY.indd 76 6/10/15 8:49 AM Get the latest from SBTS Press: A Guide to Church Revitalization
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