Rod Dreher on Bruce Waltke

Rod Dreher at BeliefNet has an interesting post on the case of Bruce Waltke a theologian at Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando who has recently resigned his position due to controversial statements he made in a video on BioLogos, a blog started by Francis Collins to promote theistic evolution.

Dreher writes:

Shocking news from the world of Protestant theology: Bruce Waltke, arguably the pre-eminent Old Testament scholar in the field, has resigned from the Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando. Why? It's not clear, but this comes right after he was excoriated by other conservative Protestant figures for statements made in a video posted to the BioLogos website.... According to an eyebrow-raising statement on the BioLogos site, Waltke stated in a video commentary that had been posted to the site that the church needed to come to terms with the fact of evolution, explaining that "if the data is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution, to deny that reality will make us a cult...some odd group that is not really interacting with the world.

And rightly so, because we are not using our gifts and trusting God's Providence that brought us to this point of our awareness." He said that refusing to deal with science as it is will marginalize Christians.

Everything Waltke is quoted as saying here seems true enough, but it raises the question whether the data really is "overwhelmingly in favor of evolution" and the even deeper question of what Waltke means by the term "evolution." There's much empirical data to support belief in common descent, but common descent is not what most people mean by evolution. The word is usually used to refer to the progression from simpler to more complex forms of life driven by purely mechanical processes with no input at any point along the way by an intelligent agent.

This is more accurately called Darwinian evolution and it's very hard to see how this view could be compatible with a Christian worldview.

Moreover, for this claim there is actually no empirical evidence, nor can there be. It's impossible to demonstrate or test the assertion that no intelligent agent was involved in calibrating the values of physics or in generating the information upon which life is based. Yet Darwinism assumes the truth of that assertion. It is therefore not a scientific claim, it's simply a religious affirmation of a faith commitment.

Dreher adds the following comments:

[E]ven though I would agree that Waltke's controversial remarks were overstated, it is all but incomprehensible that in 2010, any American scholar, particularly one of his academic distinction, could be so harshly bullied for stating an opinion consonant with current scientific orthodoxy. Doesn't Waltke at least have the right to be wrong about something like this? Don't mistake me, I believe that any and every religion, and religious institution, has the right, and indeed the obligation, to set standards and to enforce them. But is this really the hill these Reformed folks want to die on?

To be sure, the intolerance goes both ways, as Dr. Richard Sternberg can attest. Still, Waltke was not questioning basic Christian dogmas, only asserting the importance of religion reconciling itself with science. As 2010 Templeton laureate and eminent scientist Francisco Ayala recently said, he's had university students who, when they learn about evolutionary science, come to believe quite wrongly that they have to choose between science and their faith. However well meaning, the people who have apparently pushed Waltke out of the seminary over this are not protecting the integrity of the faith; they're badly compromising it.

I share Dreher's concern about bullying as well as his concern about picking our fights carefully, but I also wonder about his characterization that this was not a matter of "questioning basic Christian dogmas, only asserting the importance of religion reconciling itself with science." Is it really a question of reconciling religion with science or is it a question of capitulating to a pervasive naturalistic zeitgeist? Is it the empirical facts about the history of life that the people at Reformed Theological Seminary are resisting or is it the interpretative framework into which those facts are placed that raises their concern? I think these are relevant and important questions.

Dreher concludes with this:

I spoke with an ex-Evangelical friend about this today, telling her how mysterious Waltke's bullying was to me. She said it's not the least bit surprising to her. "You didn't grow up with it, so you have no idea how central Biblical literalism on this stuff is," she said. "It's all about Biblical inerrancy. If Genesis is not literally true in every respect, in their minds the whole thing falls apart. They can't give an inch on this."

Maybe so. The concern his friend expresses reminded me of the words of Augustine commenting on the difficulties of interpreting Genesis:

"In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines our position, we too fall with it."

In the end, though, I think Dreher is a bit too hard on Reformed Theological Seminary. After all, if the seminary has a statement of faith, and if Waltke has wandered beyond its limits and refuses to conform himself to it, whether the statement is reasonable or not, whether it contains hills they'd be better off not fighting over or not, it's probably appropriate that they part company.

RLC

Intellectual Hares and Tortoises

Have you ever been in the presence of someone really smart whose mental agility and power were so impressive that it made you feel, well, hopelessly slow? Have you known people so quick in their ability to analyze and solve problems that you felt like an intellectual tortoise by comparison? Well, if you're a tortoise don't despair. Research is suggesting that the cause of slower thinking is also a cause of greater creativity. Here's the nub of the New Scientist report:

As far as the internet or phone networks go, bad connections are bad news. Not so in the brain, where slower connections may make people more creative.

Rex Jung at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and his colleagues had found that creativity correlates with low levels of the chemical N-acetylaspartate, which is found in neurons and seems to promote neural health and metabolism.

But neurons make up the brain's grey matter - the tissue traditionally associated with thinking power, rather than creativity. So Jung is now focusing his creativity studies on white matter, which is largely made of the fatty myelin sheaths that wrap around neurons. Less myelin means the white matter has a lower "integrity" and transmits information more slowly.

Several recent studies have suggested that white matter of high integrity in the cortex, which is associated with higher mental function, means increased intelligence. But when Jung looked at the link between white matter and creativity, he found something quite different.

Jung found that the most creative people had lower white-matter integrity in a region connecting the prefrontal cortex to a deeper structure called the thalamus, compared with their less creative peers.

Jung suggests that slower communication between some areas may actually make people more creative. "This might allow for the linkage of more disparate ideas, more novelty, and more creativity," he says.

The results are surprising, given that high white-matter integrity is normally considered a good thing, says Paul Thompson at the University of California in Los Angeles. He acknowledges that speedy information transfer may not be vital for creative thought. "Sheer mental speed might be good for playing chess or doing a Rubik's cube, but you don't necessarily think of writing novels or creating art as being something that requires sheer mental speed," he says.

So, next time you're in the presence of a really outstanding thinker, don't be jealous. Console yourself with the thought that you're quite possibly more creative than he is.

RLC

Coal vs. Nukes

The West Virginia coal mine accident is a terrible tragedy, but for those of us not directly touched by the loss of life it might not be insensitive to reflect on a statistic:

The number of workers known to have died in the West Virginia coal mine tragedy is now at 25.

The average number of coal mine deaths per year since 2000 is 30.

The number of people known to have died in the U.S. as a result of accidents in the 40 year history of electricity generated by nuclear power is 0.

And yet we refuse to build more nuclear power plants because we're afraid that nuclear power will pose a hazard to people, both the plants themselves and the storage of the waste. Yet we continue to mine coal even though we know that coal poses a hazard, both to those who mine it and to the environment into which the combustion products are dumped.

As if this weren't inscrutable enough, President Obama wants to solve the problems coal poses to human safety and the environment by simply eliminating both coal and nuclear power as a source of energy. How we will light our homes once he has ushered in the golden age of a nuclear-free and fossil fuel-free world he hasn't yet explained to us, but we can be sure that he knows what he's doing.

RLC

Transcending Race

The New York Times confirms that Barack Obama is indeed the nation's first black president, having inexplicably checked "Black" to identify his race on his census form. I say "inexplicably" because the man who was going to bring us together and end all of that ugly divisiveness that plagues our politics, the man who was going to transcend race, could have checked "Other." Instead, he chose to identify with the black father he never knew, and spurn the white family that raised him.

Doesn't that seem faintly racist, if I may be forgiven for asking? If someone had one white parent and one black wouldn't it be inaccurate and arbitrary to call oneself white?

A student once asked, if every president until Mr. Obama had been black would everyone be calling President Obama the first white president?

Nah.

RLC

Re: The Most Insidious Drug

Kyle suggests (Re: The Most Insidious Drug) that we treat pornography like we treat tobacco and alcohol - tax it. We might also mount the same sort of campaign against pornography that's been mounted against smoking:

[T]he issue of pornography reminds me of the issue of tobacco smoking. Through anti-smoking ads and taxation, smoking has significantly decreased in America. So my plan is to begin by taxing pornography. With a 97 billion dollar a year industry, a tax is going to provide some significant income. With that money, let's start doing some meaningful and powerful research on the subject. Conclusively get the pros and cons of pornography and show the world our results. I think we're all pretty confident that it is harmful. After that, begin to use the money to target sex offenders, provide recover programs for those addicted to pornography and sexual addiction...

Interesting idea.

RLC

Harris on Morality

Neo-atheist Sam Harris delivers a lecture on morality in which he argues, sometimes sensibly, against moral relativism. Unfortunately, he seeks to ground his argument in the belief that somehow science can tell us what is objectively right and what is objectively wrong. He sets human flourishing as his summum bonum and then argues that whatever promotes that flourishing is right and whatever impedes it is wrong.

But why should we think that human flourishing is the summum bonum? His answer seems to be because we just feel that it is, and anyone who doesn't feel this way is wrong. Not only is this unpersuasive, it also leaves unanswered the question of why, if flourishing is indeed the greatest good we can pursue, I shouldn't pursue it just for myself or why our nation shouldn't pursue it at the expense of other nations. Why should anyone care about the flourishing of others? Why is it wrong to subordinate other people's flourishing to my own? And if death is the end what does it matter how we live anyway? Why not maximize whatever pleasures are to be found in life and let other people take care of themselves?

Harris, unfortunately, doesn't address those questions, but they really are at the heart of the metaethical debate between theists and atheists. Atheism has no answer to questions like why I should care for the poor, or why we should conserve the earth's resources, or why I should contribute to Haitian earthquake relief. The fact is that there's simply no reason why one should sacrifice anything for others unless it's in his own self-interest somehow to do so.

Here's Harris' lecture:

It's a peculiarity among science-oriented atheists like Harris that they so often argue that we should all behave in certain ways because, well, it feels to them like we should. The oddest thing about the lecture, though, is that he was given a standing ovation at its conclusion. Having listened to nothing significant for twenty five minutes or so the audience jumped to their feet to express their approval. Pretty funny.

RLC

The Looming Tsunami

A crowd of people lolling about on a beach in mid-morning takes no notice of the modest swell far off on the horizon. The weather's a little cloudy, but the forecasts in the newspapers and talking heads on tv are chattering on about how everything is soon going to be beautiful on this bright summer day, how the weather is improving, and how beach-goers will soon be basking in the glorious light of the summer sun.

A note of concern ripples through the crowd, however, when some notice that the surf appears to be draining out to sea, as if someone pulled the plug. Even so, the vacationers go on about their business applying tanning lotion, building sand castles, reading a pulp novel, listening to music, eating and drinking. But soon the surf line is a hundred yards or more further out than it was just a few minutes ago, and the crowd grows puzzled. Something is happening. They look around and see a few people hurriedly leaving the beach. Suddenly, someone yells to look out toward the ocean and to their horror a huge mountain of water, a 100 foot tsunami, is rising up and rushing headlong toward the beach. The people panic and try to scramble inland to safety, but it's too late. The tsunami crashes down upon them with unimaginable force crushing and sweeping away everything.

This is a parable of what is in store for us as a result of the incomprehensible fiscal recklessness of the last year and a half. But don't take my word for it, instead take about ten minutes to read this speech given by Rep. Paul Ryan on March 31st. Ryan is like one of those tsunami detectors that have been placed out in the ocean to alert coastal populations to the threat of an imminent tsunami. His speech is the equivalent of a three-credit college course and his warning is more valuable than any course any college offers.

If you care about your future and that of your children you should read it. You can find it here.

RLC

Flat Tax

For at least fifty years conservatives have been supporting reform of our tax structure. One of the most popular ideas that has been around for a while is to switch from the current labyrinthine complexity to a simple flat tax. The flat tax has so many advantages that it's hard to understand why we don't adopt it, other than that too many powerful people make too much money off the current system. The flat tax would replace all the confusing forms, deductions, regulations, exceptions, etc. with one simple post card size form. Instead of pages and pages of tax tables everyone would simply pay 17% of their gross income in taxes. The guy who makes 100 times what you make would pay 100 times more than you pay.

The Cato Institute has put together this video with Dan Mitchell to briefly explain how a flat tax works and what its advantages are:

Not the least of the advantages would be that the bloated IRS would be reduced in size to a fraction of its current bulk.

Another option that has excited a lot of people is something called the Fair Tax. It, too, would be a great improvement over the current system, but it might require repeal of the 16th amendment. In any event, the current system is nothing more than a full-employment mechanism for the IRS and tax lawyers. There are better, more just ways, of doing raising revenue, and we should implement them.

RLC

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Smear 'Em

I have from time to time confessed that I have a very difficult time listening to radio talker Sean Hannity. His reliance upon rhetorical tics that have the same cumulative effect as Chinese water torture, the way his voice goes into unmodulated screed mode as soon as his show opens and continues for three hours, his ersatz humility, the unctuous piety with which he lectures callers about moral issues, and his rude, arrogant treatment of callers who fail to kiss his ring often have me reaching for the radio's off button after about five minutes of being subjected to his assault on my sensibilities. Even so, a lot of people like him, and that has made him a target for the Left. Unfortunately, when the Left selects a target, truth isn't allowed to get in their way.

A week or so ago MSNBC was breathlessly reporting irregularities in Hannity's charitable work, but their allegations were soon shown to be absurd. Unabashed, they've now latched on to an even more ludicrous allegation - that Hannity expressed sympathy on his show for Timothy McVeigh. This charge is so laughable, given the context in which Hannity made his allegedly inculpatory remark, that you have to conclude that his critics, specifically a couple of lefty radio talkers named Mike Malloy and Ed Schultz, are either incredibly dumb or maliciously dishonest, or both (Schultz avowed last January that he'd be willing to cheat to keep Scott Brown from being elected in Massachussetts, so we're not dealing here with a man known for scrupulosity. This video will give you further insight into what sort of person Ed Schultz is).

Anyway, what Malloy and Schultz want you to believe to be so breathtakingly scandalous was something Hannity said to a bunch of tea-party types at a rally recently. Here's the quote:

"When you think of the vast majorities that they [the Democrats] have in Congress, and they had to bribe, backroom deals, corruption [to pass health care]. That's all because the tea party movement, the people, all these Tim McVeigh wannabes here, as they say."

The audience applauded.

Hannity was clearly using sarcasm - a weapon he admittedly wields with an unfortunate lack of dexterity - to make fun of the Left's portrayal of tea-partiers as violent extremists. His jab was, however, either too subtle for Malloy and Schultz to grasp or else they're so desperate to find something they can twist and distort that they're willing to seize any reed, no matter how slender, that might be pressed into service to discredit him.

Whatever one thinks of Hannity, the behavior of Malloy and Schultz reported at the link has the distinction of being mean, oafish and farcical all at once.

Speaking of farcical, consider MSNBC's Chris Matthews who's all beside himself because Rush Limbaugh has taken to referring to the Obama administration as a "regime." Matthews was so irate about Limbaugh's use of the pejorative that he recently felt driven to name-calling. Byron York of the Washington Examiner recounts the details of Matthews' tirade:

"I've never seen language like this in the American press," [Matthews] said, "referring to an elected representative government, elected in a totally fair, democratic, American election -- we will have another one in November, we'll have another one for president in a couple years -- fair, free, and wonderful democracy we have in this country.... We know that word, 'regime.' It was used by George Bush, 'regime change.' You go to war with regimes. Regimes are tyrannies. They're juntas. They're military coups. The use of the word 'regime' in American political parlance is unacceptable, and someone should tell the walrus [Limbaugh] to stop using it."

Matthews didn't stop there. "I never heard the word 'regime,' before, have you?" he said to NBC's Chuck Todd. "I don't even think Joe McCarthy ever called this government a 'regime.'"

Well, as Mr. York reminds the forgetful Mr. Matthews, during the Bush administration the term saw the light of day over 6,700 times. It was used dozens of times in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and on Matthew's own network, MSNBC, in reference to Mr. Bush's presidency. In fact, it was used several times on Matthews' own show and, amusingly enough, at least once by Matthews himself.

I leave it to the reader to decide how best to describe Mr. Matthews' chastisement of Mr. Limbaugh for invoking a term that Matthews himself has chosen to employ.

RLC

Just Give 'Em That Old Time Religion

Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, an atheist and co-author of What Darwin Got Wrong, has a piece at Spiked Review of Books that claims that Darwinism is a secular religion whose devotees brook no questioning or challenges. As a prelude to his argument he recounts this story:

Some months ago an American philosopher explained to a highly sophisticated audience in Britain what, in his opinion, was wrong, indeed fatally wrong, with the standard neo-Darwinian theory of biological evolution. He made it crystal clear that his criticism was not inspired by creationism, intelligent design or any remotely religious motivation. A senior gentleman in the audience erupted, in indignation: 'You should not say such things, you should not write such things! The creationists will treasure them and use them against science.' The lecturer politely asked: 'Even if they are true?' To which the instant and vibrant retort was: 'Especially if they are true!' with emphasis on the 'especially'.

For at least this gentleman, who sounds like no one so much as Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor, truth is not as important as is maintaining the viability of the materialist dogma. The dogma must not be questioned lest faith in materialism wane among the masses. The dogma's weaknesses must not be publicized lest its opponents be encouraged thereby.

John Stuart Mill, perhaps the paradigmatic classical liberal, wrote in his great essay On Liberty that:

[T]he peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: If wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit; the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

Mill goes on to say that when a belief is insulated from criticism, suffering no fresh and living conviction to challenge it, it does nothing for the mind or heart except stand sentinel over them to keep them vacant. Mill was thinking here of theistic religion but the admonition applies just as much to modern naturalistic religion as well. Maybe moreso.

HT: Telic Thoughts

RLC

When Is Profiling Not Profiling?

The answer to the question in the title is, "Whenever Democrats do it."

When it was thought that the Bush administration was engaged in profiling terrorist suspects, or whenever it was suggested that we should profile (which, of course, we should), the left-leaning media got all in a swivet about infringements of civil rights and other such pretensions. Now the Obama administration is actually going to profile airline travelers, though they won't call it that, and you probably haven't heard much more than subdued tsk tsking from the Left:

While trying hard to avoid admitting to "profiling," the Obama administration has introduced new measures for screening US-bound air travelers based on how closely their personal characteristics match intelligence on potential terrorists. Nationality, age, certain physical characteristics, recently visited countries and partial (Muslim-sounding) names will be used alongside the no-fly list to step up flight security.

Here's a rule of thumb for understanding how the Left interprets any security policy enacted by an administration: If Republicans do it it's ipso facto an outrageous threat to our civil rights. If Democrats do it it's ipso facto a perfectly reasonable effort to guarantee our safety.

If these people ever need to supplement their income maybe they should consider stand-up comedy. They're good at it.

RLC

Resurrection Day

This post originally appeared on Viewpoint on Easter 2005:

Jon Meacham of Newsweek, perhaps chastened by the criticism he received following his foray into Christian theology over Christmas, pens a much less offensive column about the Resurrection of Jesus in the current issue. He notes that the tomb of Christ was almost certainly empty that first Easter morning. If it were not, he observes, the opponents of Christ had only to produce the body to abort the religious turmoil that the sect of Christians was beginning to arouse. This they did not do, a startling historical fact, really, which leads us to the obvious conclusion that they couldn't do it. This leads us in turn to ask why not.

No naturalistic explanation of the empty tomb makes sense. The most common of these is that the disciples stole the corpse, but this hypothesis is plausible only if one assumes a priori that non-natural explanations are impossible. To believe that the disciples stole the body one must believe that a band of terrified fishermen overpowered an armed military guard, a crime for which they were never arrested or charged, stole the cadaver, and eventually underwent torture and martyrdom for preaching around the world what they knew to be a lie. People will die for a lie they believe to be true, but only men suffering from some form of dementia would die for a lie they knew to be a lie, and there's no reason to think these men were demented.

Surely, if the authorities believed the disciples had stolen the body they would have brought irresistibly persuasive techniques to bear to coerce them into divulging its whereabouts. Yet there's no indication whatsoever in the historical record that this was even attempted.

The skeptic says, as was noted above, that no matter how implausible a given naturalistic explanation may be it's still more believable than the claim that a man rose from the dead. This objection, however, rests on the assumption that there is no God, an assumption that is much easier to make than to defend. If, contrary to the skeptical view, it is possible that God exists then miracles are indeed also possible, and if they are possible, we have to examine the evidence for an alleged instance of one, especially one as significant as the resurrection of Jesus, to determine whether it is, in fact, credible. The evidence for the historical, physical revivification of Christ, many scholars have concluded, is at least as powerful as that for any other event in antiquity.

Other attempts to avoid the conclusion that a miracle actually occurred are equally unimpressive. Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code adopts a version of the swoon theory, that after some thirty six hours without medical care, Jesus somehow recovered from his wounds, including the spear thrust, with sufficient vigor to roll away the heavy stone blocking the tomb. He accomplished this astonishing feat without being detected by the Roman guard, and subsequently appeared to the disciples and dozens, even hundreds, of others, looking so hale and hearty that they believed that he had conquered death and was the very Son of God.

Even if something like this could have happened, the disciples would have known that Jesus had not "risen from the dead" in any theologically significant sense. He would have eventually died (or, as Brown has it, absconded to France with his beloved Mary Magdalene), and his dead body would be proof that he was not the Messiah. This, then, brings us back to the question above: Why would people have been willing to be tortured and martyred for a man they would have realized was a false messiah?

Skeptics scoff at miracles, but the most important miracle in the history of Christendom is one which defies any attempt to explain away. The most plausible explanation for the empty tomb, unless one holds an a priori commitment to atheism, is that God actually did raise Jesus from the dead just as we are promised that we will be. Because death did not result in the annihilation of His being we have the hope that neither will it result in ours.

This is the wonderful significance of the event Christians celebrate every Easter. Have a wonderful Resurrection Day.

Dick and Bill

Thoughts on Mean Girls

The story of Phoebe Prince, the Massachussetts 15 year-old immigrant from Ireland who was bullied and harassed to the extent that she took her life is heart-breakingly sad. The girls who drove her to suicide exhibited a phenomenon common enough to have been given a name, "mean girls," apparently after a movie by that title which was also about girls who behave abominably.

There's been a lot of talk about the culpability of the school officials in Prince's death, but the question we might better ponder is why girls behave like this in the first place? What kind of human beings would hound a girl to her death and then continue to mock her on Facebook afterward? Are packs of girl's pushing other girls to total desperation now a normal part of an already fetid and effete culture? Why were these girls so cruel, why did they have so little empathy, so little compassion or kindness in their hearts?

Of course it's human nature to be cruel and resentful of outsiders. Compassion and acceptance of others have to be taught. These virtues have to be instilled in our children as a duty, and a culture that has abandoned the basis for moral duty, i.e. a Christian understanding of the world, is generally going to do a poor job of teaching that we have any such obligations to others.

Courtesy, forgiveness, selflessness, generosity and magnanimity in giving the benefit of the doubt all require a conviction that this is the proper way to conduct oneself, but if someone asks the question why one should comport oneself this way our post-Christian culture can give them no answer other than to say that it's nice to do so. In other words, we should be nice, we try to convince our children, because it's nice. That's going to fail to persuade a lot of young people, but it's the best we can do without invoking socially proscribed religious sanctions.

Consequently, our young people absorb their ethics from their cultural role models, and these are often, though not always, foul-mouthed, slutty, selfish, materialistic and petty. Many young girls learn at an early age that the most important thing in life is to look good and be popular and the best way to be popular is to be hard, loose, and hot. Failing that, the best way to consolidate one's status in the social hierarchy is to display power over another, and the best way to do that is by showing that you can hurt them. Young women weaned on this Darwinian view of what life's all about have little warmth in their hearts and little room for compassion in their souls.

As tragic and disgusting as the behavior of the culprits in Massachussetts was, no one should be surprised by it. Simply look at how too many of their role models behave, look at who and what the entertainment media incessantly promote, consider that many kids grow up with no real moral instruction and no foundation for whatever instruction they do get, and the wonder is that more girls aren't as cruel and repellent as the South Hadley High School nine.

RLC

Clark Pinnock

Those readers with an interest in theology will be saddened by this news. Thomas Oord writes at his blog that:

Clark Pinnock is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Clark sent John Sanders and me the following note:

Dear Tom and John:

I want to inform you that I am now middle stage Alzheimer's. I will not be able to do my writing etc. I am 73 years now, and I've enjoyed my biblical three score and ten. I am not bitter. I have had a good life. I'll meet you over Jordan if not before.

You are free to make this news known.

With love,

Clark

Clark Pinnock was an extremely influential theologian during the latter half of the twentieth century, especially among Evangelicals. He was most well-known, and most controversial, as a champion of the view called Open Theism or Open Theology.

Oord pens a splendid summary of Pinnock's view on this issue on the same page that he features his email. Those interested in the subject will find Oord's treatment very helpful.

RLC

Killing the American Dream

The Weekly Standard discerns a distinct hostility in the Obama administration toward business, wealth and achievement:

This animus toward accomplishment is producing significant political consequences. The February issue of Trends Magazine included an article titled, "The War on Achievement and its Building Backlash."

"For 250 years, America has been known throughout the world as the place where anyone could work hard, scrape together a little money and invest in a great idea," the Trends writers observe. "But a creeping kind of governmental interference has seriously threatened this ideal," they argue. In other words, the Trends writers continue, "the very bedrock concept underlying what's typically called 'the American Dream' is threatened by these measures."

Some specific pillars in the anti-achievement platform appear popular when polled - like raising taxes on the wealthy. Yet that's because higher taxes on the wealthy is never linked with any costs for the middle class in these surveys. Once voters understand there is a point at which taxing the rich or other perks produces negative economic consequences, the poll numbers would shift dramatically. Just ask the cocktail waitress in Vegas how Obama's tax and bonus rhetoric affects her economic prospects.

Rather than protecting the middle class, Obama's policies threaten their long-term ambitions through piling up unprecedented levels of debt justified by scorekeeping gimmicks. The president and his staff argued the health bill would reduce the deficit over the first ten years. But that's only because it includes ten years of taxes and spending cuts but only six years of benefits. Has Bernie Madoff become the Democrats' bookkeeper?

There's more at the link. Thanks to Jason for passing it along.

Actually the situation is even more dire than this article suggests. Keep checking back for more articles on the coming day of fiscal reckoning with which our government has put us on a collison course. We have to wonder why they're doing this. What is their justification for burying our children under mountains of debt?

All we get from the President are assurances that we've "turned the corner" on the recession even as his policies virtually guarantee that any recovery is going to be very short-lived. It's all very troubling.

RLC

The Most Insidious Drug

A writer at National Review discusses her conviction that her husband's addiction ruined her family:

Imagine a drug so powerful it can destroy a family simply by distorting a man's perception of his wife. Picture an addiction so lethal it has the potential to render an entire generation incapable of forming lasting marriages and so widespread that it produces more annual revenue - $97 billion worldwide in 2006 - than all of the leading technology companies combined. Consider a narcotic so insidious that it evades serious scientific study and legislative action for decades, thriving instead under the ever-expanding banner of the First Amendment.

According to an online statistics firm, an estimated 40 million people use this drug on a regular basis. It doesn't come in pill form. It can't be smoked, injected, or snorted. And yet neurological data suggest its effects on the brain are strikingly similar to those of synthetic drugs. Indeed, two authorities on the neurochemistry of addiction, Harvey Milkman and Stanley Sunderwirth, claim it is the ability of this drug to influence all three pleasure systems in the brain - arousal, satiation, and fantasy - that makes it "the pi�ce de r�sistance among the addictions."

The drug, of course, is pornography. The writer, a psychologist who wishes to remain anonymous, continues:

According to Dr. Victor Cline, a nationally renowned clinical psychologist who specializes in sexual addiction, pornography addiction is a process that undergoes four phases. First, addiction, resulting from early and repeated exposure accompanied by masturbation. Second, escalation, during which the addict requires more frequent porn exposure to achieve the same "highs" and may learn to prefer porn to sexual intercourse. Third, desensitization, during which the addict views as normal what was once considered repulsive or immoral. And finally, the acting-out phase, during which the addict runs an increased risk of making the leap from screen to real life.

The article is as arresting as it is important. When pornography began to be mass-produced back in the sixties it was common to hear it defended by liberals as a harmless outlet for pent-up urges. Well, we've had the outlet around now for almost fifty years. It has metastasized via the internet and film throughout the culture to the point that it's hard to avoid it, and every study I've read about gives the lie to those who assured us way back then that pornography was no big deal. Like alcohol it's addictive and devastating, not only to the person who consumes it but also to the consumer's family and, in an increasing number of cases, other innocent women and children.

Read the rest of the essay. If you're a young woman dating someone you might want to enquire about his attitudes toward pornography. If you think he might be viewing it, you could be very likely setting yourself up for a lot of heartbreak if you continue in the relationship.

RLC

Clerical Error

Jason Mattera is at it again. This time he confronts Virginia Democratic Congressman Jim Moran about the $6.4 billion of stimulus money that went to congressional districts that don't exist. Rep. Moran insists it was just a "clerical error."

Hey, what's a few billion dollars of taxpayer money when you're spending trillions?

I wonder what would have happened had Mr. Moran's aides not been there to keep the two men apart.

RLC

Making Us All Equal

Congressman Paul Ryan, the ranking member on the House budget committee, knows the recently passed health care reform bill inside and out. In a recent column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he explains to his Wisconsin constituents the enormous costs that loom ahead:

Premiums in the individual [insurance] market would rise from 10% to 13% for families. Our debt and deficit crisis - driven by $76 trillion in unfunded liabilities [mostly Social Security and Medicare] - would accelerate from the creation of a brand new entitlement and an increase in the federal deficit by $662 billion, when the true costs are factored in. National health expenditures will increase by an additional $222 billion over the next decade, according to the president's own chief actuary, and $2.4 trillion in the decade after the new entitlement is up and running.

The entire architecture of this overhaul is designed, unapologetically, to give the government greater control over what kind of insurance is available, how much health care is enough and which treatments are worth paying for.

The massive expansion of the federal government into the personal health care decisions will drive providers out of business and force employers to dump their workers on to government - controlled exchanges. Because Washington doesn't approve, millions of Wisconsin seniors will lose their Medicare Advantage plans and millions more will lose the consumer - friendly high-deductible health plans they enjoy.

There is another personal cost to this deluge of new government spending and control. Wisconsin remains in dire need of sustained job growth and robust economic recovery. This legislation will hit our economy with $569 billion in tax increases - tax hikes that will hit workers, families and job-creators alike.

Ryan concludes his piece with an important explanation as to why the Democrats were so determined to foist this crushing burden upon us and our children:

The yearlong partisan crusade - right through its ugly conclusion - revealed that this debate was never about policy but rather a paternalistic ideology at odds with our historic commitment to individual liberty, limited government and entrepreneurial dynamism. The proponents of this legislation reject an opportunity society and instead assume you are stuck in your station in life and the role of government is to help you cope with it. Rather than promote equal opportunities for individuals to make the most of their lives, the cradle-to-grave welfare state seeks to equalize the results of people's lives.

Apparently so, but since Congress has exempted some of their own members from the bill they must think that they're more equal than the rest of us. A great way to achieve the equality they wish to impose on us is to return them to private life in November.

RLC

Non-Violent Civil War

Dennis Prager surveys the current cultural and political scene and concludes that we're in the midst of a non-violent civil war. This assessment shouldn't come as a shock to anyone who has been paying attention to the culture wars that've been raging in our society for the last thirty years.

What Prager says, and what many have been saying for decades now, is that the Left is at war with traditional America. Their values and ambitions are inimical to the principles upon which the country was founded and upon which five generations of Americans have been raised.

It's important to note that by the term "Left" Prager doesn't mean liberals:

Liberalism believed in American exceptionalism; the Left not only does not believe in it, but opposes it. (President Obama, when asked if he believes in American exceptionalism, replied, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.")

Liberalism believed in creating wealth; the Left is interested in redistributing it. Liberalism believed in a strong defense. The Left believes in cutting defense and relying on a strong United Nations.

How have we gotten to the point where those who want to fundamentally change the things that have made life in America so much better for so many people now have the power to do it? Perhaps it's largely because for too long too many of our citizens have taken little interest in matters beyond the scope of their own families, workplaces, and communities. The average American is woefully uninformed about the larger culture, particularly the political culture, and has failed and been failed in his education by both school and church.

Too many students graduate from high school, for example, with an understanding neither of the Constitution nor of American history. Too many Americans sit in pews every Sunday without ever hearing a sermon on the crucial importance of religion as a basis for moral virtue, or, for that matter, on the need for moral virtue in our personal and corporate lives. Instead, much of our understanding of matters both of faith and politics is left to be shaped by a mostly toxic and inane pop culture.

Too few Americans have ever read The Federalist Papers, Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Mill's On Liberty, Locke's Second Treatise on Government, or Smith's Wealth of Nations. Without at least a passing familiarity with works like these by men whose ideas informed the American experiment, it's hard for people to grasp how much different the Left's principles are from the principles of those who founded this country.

Too few Americans know even two or three of the amendments to the Constitution. Too few even care what they are or would be much concerned if they heard that they were all to be repealed tomorrow.

Our ignorance about how our nation came to be and how it works makes us vulnerable to the corrosive acids of a leftist ideology that abhors the very freedom that has made America a great nation and the hope of people all around the globe. Representative John Dingell gave us a peek into the leftist mindset the other day when he let slip that the goal of health care was to "control the people." Individual freedom is the furthest thing from the minds of too many of our political leaders. For such as Mr. Dingell the opportunity to govern is all about the power to control:

If the Left is successful in reducing this country to the status of, say, France or England the world will pay an awful price. There'll be no economic powerhouse to deliver to the world's destitute the food, medicine, and other charitable benefits they need to survive. There'll be no military strong enough to serve as a check on Islamic terror and expansion or to deter war in the Middle East or between India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, Turkey and Greece, or Russia and Europe. An economically enfeebled America would be a militarily crippled America and our weakness would invite chaos and bloodletting on a massive scale around the globe.

This is the direction the Left, under Obama, Pelosi and Reid, is taking us, whether purposely or not. Our national indebtedness will, in a decade or so, be so high, our government will be so top-heavy, that all our wealth will either be siphoned off to creditors like China, or sucked into the vast bureaucratic machinery of the social welfare state. There'll be little left over to spend on defense or charitable relief and little incentive for individuals to work hard and take risks.

Edmund Burke once said, "All that's necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." Perhaps the last year has roused Americans from their traditional torpor and inspired them to start caring. At least we can hope.

RLC

Jaime Escalante

Readers under the age of 25 might never have heard of Jaime Escalante, and even many over 25 probably never heard of him either. Even so, he was a role model for a generation of teachers who wanted to do everything they could to give their students the best education they could get.

There are teachers who just want to put in the time and collect a check. There are teachers who want to teach, but are unwilling to work much beyond what the contract calls for, and then there are teachers like Escalante who view teaching much like most coaches view coaching. He was ready and willing to put in whatever time and effort were needed to win, and it paid off. Escalante was an immigrant from Bolivia who struggled with English. He taught math in inner city L.A., and through sheer hard work, determination and personality brought many of his students to a point where they were passing the AP calculus exam as a matter of course. His was a wonderful, moving story made into a movie in 1988 starring Edward James Olmos and titled Stand and Deliver.

If you're planning to be a teacher or if you just want to be inspired by what one man can accomplish when he's determined to achieve, rent Stand and Deliver.

Jaime Escalante died Tuesday in his native Bolivia at the age of 79.

RLC