I’m pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I’ve heard in the past week, I’ll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the “National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time.” For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.

Tebow’s 30-second ad hasn’t even run yet, but it already has provoked “The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us” to reveal something
important about themselves: They aren’t actually “pro-choice” so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn’t be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one. I would like to meet the genius at NOW who made that decision. On second thought, no, I wouldn’t.

There’s not enough space in the sports pages for the serious weighing of values that constitutes this debate, but surely everyone in both camps, pro-choice or pro-life, wishes the “need” for abortions wasn’t so great. Which is precisely why NOW is so wrong to take aim at Tebow’s ad.

Be sure to read the whole thing. Hats off to Ms. Jenkins for calling out the intolerant critics on the Left who wish to demonize the Tebows. Though we may not agree on whether abortion is wrong we can at least agree that we can respectfully disagree with each other.

Yup, the much-reviled (by the Left) program to teach kids to refrain from sex before marriage, rather than just avoiding pregnancy, seems to work.

Sex education classes that focus on encouraging children to remain abstinent can persuade a significant proportion to delay sexual activity, researchers reported Monday in a landmark study that could have major implications for U.S. efforts to protect young people against unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

Only about a third of sixth- and seventh-graders who completed an abstinence-focused program started having sex within the next two years, researchers found. Nearly half of the students who attended other classes, including ones that combined information about abstinence and contraception, became sexually active.

The findings are the first clear evidence that an abstinence program could work.

"I think we’ve written off abstinence-only education without looking closely at the nature of the evidence," said John B. Jemmott III, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who led the federally funded study. "Our study shows this could be one approach that could be used."

Critics do have a point.

Several critics of an abstinence-only approach said that the curriculum tested did not represent most abstinence programs. It did not take a moralistic tone, as many abstinence programs do. Most notably, the sessions encouraged children to delay sex until they are ready, not necessarily until married; did not portray sex outside marriage as never appropriate; and did not disparage condoms.

"There is no data in this study to support the ‘abstain until marriage’ programs, which research proved ineffective during the Bush administration," said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth.

However, this is certainly a step in the right direction.  As Rush Limbaugh has often said, abstinence works every time it’s tried, and the more this message gets to the kids, the better.  The moral reasons for it can be left to the parents.

I have Multiple Sclerosis, and have had it for a bit over 23 years.  The first episode I had numbed the left half of my body from the shoulder to the foot.  With medication it went almost entirely away, with just some slight lingering numbness in my left hand that I could handle.  Other smaller episodes of it coming and going occurred for some years after that, but then it left for about 10 years (again, with those initial leftovers being the only hint of it) until 2006, when I had a larger episode.  I recounted that time in a previous blog post.

As I said back then, the treatment in 2006 was much different than in 1986, and I got back most of the feeling in my right arm.  This still left some numbness in my right hand, which, while more so that what was in my left hand, still allowed me to touch-type (and being a programmer, typing is essential).  I also had numbness in my feet and lower legs, but the treatment removed most of that as well.

MS comes in two forms; the kind that comes rather swiftly and then goes away with treatment, and the kind that continue to creep slowly through the body.  I’d always had the former.  However, after the 2006 episode, it seems I had some of the creeping kind.  I noticed, after the treatment, that if I walked for too long, perhaps a couple of miles or so at a stretch, that my right leg would start to drag, as though the nerves telling it to move were keeping the signal from getting there easily.  A bit of a rest — 15 minutes or so — and I’d be back going again.  Imperceptibly, however, this distance before the leg started to drag began to shrink.  It never seemed to be a big deal until I realized that how far I could walk during a few different annual events (camp outs, quiz meets, those sorts of things) was noticeably different if I remembered how I was the previous year.  When I thought of it this way, I could see that things were indeed getting worse.  I could go no more than a quarter of a mile, and sometimes not even that, before the leg started dragging.  (After a long drive with some of the youth, in a van where the cruise control wasn’t working, my leg was immediately useless upon exiting the van.)

One of the things I’ve considered on and off over the years was asking God to heal me.  I was a little hesitant, however, because, as I noted in the other post, God had already made it very clear to me that He could do it, He just wasn’t doing it at the time.  Fair enough; I could live with that.  And in living with that, I got the idea that I shouldn’t pursue that, other than the occasional requests for healing at our church.  I would be prayed over, but I never really expected something instantaneous because I figured He’d do it when and if He wanted.  And indeed, nothing much ever happened.

But this summer, I began to get this desire to really pursue a healing from God.  Part of it was realizing that I was really unable to participate in my older son’s Boy Scout events, and that my younger son was hitting his Cub Scout Webelos years.  Part of it was I was just plain tired of the whole MS thing.  But a big part of it was that I came to the realization that God didn’t necessarily want this for me either.  He could certainly work through it, and He had.  (God’s hands are not tied because of mere sickness.)  But I felt now that He wanted me to really pursue Him and a healing.

Read the rest of this entry

That’s what writer Keith Baldrey is asking.

Is health care becoming the mortal enemy of our country’s education system?

I don’t pose this question facetiously. When we’re discussing public services, it’s important to remember that at the end of the day, everything comes down to money.

And it is obvious that health care is increasingly getting that money at the apparent expense of other public services – most notably education.

In fact, our health-care system’s voracious and unending appetite for tax dollars is crowding out spending in all sorts of other areas.

That’s a fair question.  We don’t yet have a system like Canada’s, for example, but we do have tax dollars that do go into heath care.  But is it really that bad?  Is there really that much of an issue of having to decide either health care or education?

We no, not really.  As James Taranto notes:

If only we had a single-payer system like Canada’s . . . Oh, wait! Baldrey’s article is about Canada’s system. It appears in the Surrey (British Columbia) Now.

And be thankful that it won’t be.

I am working on a project that may become a book on the most influential evangelicals leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time.  Who do you think should be on the list?

Bill McCartney. Man’s Man. b.1940

In October 1997, well over a million Christian men crowded onto the Washington Mall to sing, pray and listen to inspirational and emotional charges to lead godly lives as fathers, husbands, and leaders. Promise Keepers’ Stand in the Gap (SITG), perhaps the largest religious gathering in American history, was a historic phenomenon and the high water mark of Promise Keepers and the career of its president, Bill McCartney.

There are millions of men and families who benefited from McCartney’s courage and the unwavering biblical teaching in the masculine stadium settings and from in–your-face teaching of the Promise Keepers stadium events. There had never been anything like 50,000 men gathering in a sports stadium to celebrate their faith and hear hard teachings about the way they should lead their lives as Christian men. SITG was the culmination of these events; like 100 stadium events at once.

In many ways, Bill McCartney was the personification of PK, and its dramatic history is a reflection of the red-hot persona of the former high-level football coach and his stubborn single-mindedness. The heights to which the PK movement soared and the speed of its ascent may be without parallel, the drama of which is matched only by its nearly total collapse within two years of the Washington gathering.
Promise Keepers is a symbol of evangelical conquest of one of its greatest problems—the failure to reach and persuade men—and a sad symbol of bad management based on careless theology.

A few days before the great SITG gathering, I took Bill McCartney to Washington television studios to do network television interviews, including a memorable time at ABC News. The sheer size of SITG made it impossible for media to ignore, although they were clearly inclined to dismiss a religious gathering on the Mall, where dozens of groups hold large rallies every year. Since McCartney was the straight-talking founder of the group and a former coach of the national champion Colorado football team, there was strong interest in interviewing him.

One interview was on ABC Nightline with Ted Koppel, which was taped in the afternoon and aired at late night. While the interview was fine and fair, the memorable part of the visit was prior to the taping. We arrived well in advance of the interview and we were relaxing in the comfortable chairs of the green room. McCartney was reading his Bible when Koppel entered the room and greeted us warmly. “What are you reading?” Koppel asked, and McCartney reviewed the passage that he was studying. Koppel listened thoughtfully, then added: “Let me share with you a little of my daily reading in the Torah.” At which point he pulled a copy of the scripture from his briefcase, read a few passages and had a brief discussion with McCartney about spiritual truths.

I’d taken Christian leaders into hundreds of news offices and green rooms over the years, and I’d never had a mainstream news anchor sit for a personal discussion, open the scripture and discuss spiritual things. I’d always found Koppel to be a serious, fair, quality newsman. This experience gave me a new level of respect.

It was part of a remarkable week in Washington for McCartney, Promise Keepers, and the evangelical movement in America.

After reading a list of oxymorons, beginning with George Carlin’s famous “jumbo shrimp” and “military intelligence,” I got a minor laugh in a college course I taught on writing for public communication by introducing as the next oxymoron, Media Ethics. It introduced a section on the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics and I suggested the following list of ten ways the national media could restore its reputation.

1. Accuracy: Attention to detail; accuracy at all costs.

2. Thoroughness: Emphasize thoroughness over speed; getting the story right is more important than getting it first.

3. Humility: demonstrate humility through preparation, broad and vigorous research, and by seeking out experts.

4. Real Affirmative Action in news operations: ideological, religious, regional, and socio-economic, as well as racial and ethnic.

5. Journalism not Opposition: Reaffirm journalists as reporters of news, not the opposition party.

6. Historic Values: Reflect traditional values of the nation—ethics, historic teachings of faith groups.

7. Thinking: Recover the serious and critical mind—beyond the sound bite.

8. Rediscover Shame: wrongdoers should not be honored, they should be dishonored.

9. Self Cleansing: Restore credibility by cleaning up your own house so that journalists are trusted to present news fairly and professionally.

10. Leave NYC: Build national media competence and presence outside New York City and Washington, D.C. It would be good if the major networks moved to Des Moines, or Kansas City, or perhaps Indianapolis.

These were my thoughts for one group of future journalists.

Recently there was a discussion over Scripture at Evangel over whether it was infallible or inerrant and what that might mean. But this discussion I offer, in an important way is missing the point. When pointing at whether or not Scripture is or is not in-whatever verses within Scripture which offer it as inspired by the Spirit of God are used to defend that point of view. Scripture is a primary tool used to understand the divine mysteries. Tradition in turn is the millennia of men and women and their progress into understanding and experiencing these mysteries.

Mystery itself is a widely misunderstood term. When we speak of mystery fiction, such as stories of the famous detectives like Ms Marple, Mr Holmes, and so on the mystery is primarily about unknown answer to the puzzle. The canonical ‘butler’ did it is not the answer to the mystery. The mystery is the experience, the unfolding and walking through toward and understanding of the occurrence in question. Telling someone that that butler “did it” does not move one towards a greater understanding of what occurred without the missing details, the context, the narrative, and the other details like means, method, and motive. These things can only be understood … and are what those protagonists strive to understand by exploring and understanding the fundamental kernel of mystery. To understand and uncover a mystery is an experiential phenomena.

Quantum mechanics is said to be a modern scientific mystery. It is one which cannot, by and large, be understood by hearing stories and words which, like ‘the butler did it’ try to describe the denouement of this 20th century physics discovery. It is understood though the experience gained by working through the mathematical details and mechanics until like the unfolding of the narrative of mystery fiction the kernel of the mystery is understood. Quantum mechanics, like those mysteries of God revealed as through a glass darkly in Scripture, is a mystery for which the core of which is ineffable.

Ineffability is not a rare thing. Most things in life in fact are ineffable. Your feelings for your wife, how to ride a bicycle, most of science (see for example Personal Knowledge), and in fact much of life is at its core ineffable. These things at their core contain central facets which are not expressible in words. They cannot be reduced fragments of language, but must be understood through the doing, or in the context of the above, are a mystery.

The arguments about fallibility vs inerrancy is one which sets aside the mystery at the core of Scripture. It is based, in part, on an assumption that reason can be utilized to unpack and expose the ineffable mystery lying behind and within the core of the key facets which Scripture contains. Trinity, duality, and creed are tools for used by our reason in seeking to understand these mystery, which in turn can only be experienced and understood not by reason alone but what in late antiquity was called our nous, which is our whole mind … including those emotive and intuitive parts of which reason is just one facet.

Liturgy and Tradition contain the wisdom of the Christian millennia of men and women who did understand the mystery trying to uncover and demonstrate for the rest of us ways to deepen our understand the mysteries within our faith. The lives of Saints, heroes of our Church, should be (and are) recounted because in their lives these men and women who did indeed understand the mysteries in ways more profound than is ordinary can be utilized as examples for us to sink into those same mysteries. Scripture gives us a fabric, a background and Tradition gives us hermeneutic, methods, and examples.

1. The President and the e-Church phenomena.
2. Nepal and the Maoists.
3. Memory and narrative.
4. That deficit.
5. Democracy and Islam.
6. Big ring.
7. Our dying democracy.
8. Discussing the “political hit” and healthcare.
9. Looking at strategic elements.
10. A dam … in danger.
11. Global warming death.
12. Metal foam, coming to a car near you … when?
13. Demographics and India.
14. Hacking.

Despite the dire predictions of Global Warming proponents, the general public doesn’t seem to be quite so concerned. Rather, the economy, jobs, and terrorism top their list of priorities. Global warming brings up the rear, ranking 21st out of 21.

Even so, the folks at NASA have launched a special website dedicated to educating our children as to the issues pertaining to number 21 (perhaps with the hopes of raising it up a few notches).

Not to worry, though, if you have to put on an extra overcoat this winter. From the Washington Post, “This winter’s extreme weather — with heavy snowfall in some places and unusually low temperatures — is in fact a sign of how climate change disrupts long-standing patterns, according to a new report by the National Wildlife Federation.”