"And lo...."

Even in the '60s the networks were completely clueless about the American people. From "The Gospel According to Peanuts":

.... Few headlines about network television make me giddy. Fewer still make me hopeful that all is good in the world. But back in August of 2010, I read the following headline from the media pages with great excitement: "Charlie Brown Is Here to Stay: ABC Picks Up Peanuts Specials Through 2015." The first of these to be made, the famous Christmas special, was an instant classic when it was created by Charles Schulz on a shoestring budget back in 1965, and thanks to some smart television executives, it will be around for at least another five years for all of us to see and enjoy.

What people don't know is that the Christmas special almost didn't happen, because some not-so-smart television executives almost didn't let it air. You see, Charles Schulz had some ideas that challenged the way of thinking of those executives 46 years ago, and one of them had to do with the inclusion in his Christmas cartoon of a reading from the King James Bible’s version of the Gospel of Luke. ....

...[T]he executives did not want to have Linus reciting the story of the birth of Christ from the Gospel of Luke. The network orthodoxy of the time assumed that viewers would not want to sit through passages of the King James Bible. ....

As Charlie Brown sinks into a state of despair trying to find the true meaning of Christmas, Linus quietly saves the day. He walks to center of the stage where the Peanuts characters have gathered, and under a narrow spotlight, quotes the second chapter of the Gospel According to Luke, verses 8 through 14:

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards men.

.... And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown, Linus concluded. ....

When CBS executives saw the final product, they were horrified. They believed the special would be a complete flop. CBS programmers were equally pessimistic, informing the production team, "We will, of course, air it next week, but I'm afraid we won't be ordering any more."

The half-hour special aired on Thursday, December 9, 1965, preempting The Munsters and following Gilligan's Island. To the surprise of the executives, 50 percent of the televisions in the United States tuned in to the first broadcast. The cartoon was a critical and commercial hit; it won an Emmy and a Peabody award. .... (more)

The Gospel According to Peanuts - National Review Online

How do we know what we know?

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- "I refute it thus." [Boswell: Life of Samuel Johnson]

Tom Gilson summarizes the thesis of Alvin Plantinga's new book in the title of his review: "There’s No Good Argument For Design, But Who Needs One?" His description of Plantinga's argument reminded me of the exchange between Boswell and Samuel Johnson quoted above. Gilson on Plantinga:

.... Plantinga’s specialty is in epistemology, the philosophical study of how we know, and how we know that we know. He applies this to the question of whether we can know that nature is intelligently designed, just by examining it. Following detailed and rather technical discussions....he concludes that the arguments in favor of design are not compelling. ....

That argument swings both ways, of course. If Plantinga is right, and if there is no good argument for God in nature’s design, there is also no good argument against God in nature. Plantinga mentions that in this context but he does not dwell much on it. ....

...[I]f there is no design argument, does that mean no design, and no designer? No. For Plantinga it’s much simpler than an argument. Design is just apparent in the world. We can see it, as we can see that the world wasn’t created intact in its current form just five minutes ago, that our memories are at least somewhat trustworthy, that there are other people (other minds) in the world besides ourselves. No argument could prove these things true, yet we know them trustworthy knowledge regardless. These are “basic beliefs:” things we know without having to call upon a string of inferences to support that knowledge.

We can see design just as clearly, says Plantinga.

The same goes if you are on a voyage of space exploration, land on some planet which has an earth-like atmosphere, but about which nothing or next-to-nothing is known, and come across an object that looks more or less like a 1929 Model T Ford. You would certainly see this object as designed; you would not engage in probabilistic arguments about how likely it is that there should be an object like this that was not designed.

(The emphasis is added.) Of course Plantinga knows that perception of this sort can be mistaken. He goes on to analyze ways we can judge whether it is mistaken.... [more]

Plantinga: There’s No Good Argument For Design, But Who Needs One? - Thinking Christian

Truer truth

Peter Wehner on why the response to Penn State demonstrates the reality of moral law:

...[T]he near-universal condemnation toward Penn State is a healthy sign. It demonstrates that moral relativism, while trendy in some quarters, is ultimately unserious, and that even a culture that can idolize non-judgmentalism has its limits.

We all recognize a moral law, whether we admit it or not. Everyone you know believes raping young boys is wrong. Let C.S. Lewis take it from here. "The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard," Lewis wrote, "saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other; the standard that measures two things is something different from either. You are in fact comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting there is such a thing as a real Right, independent of what people think, and that some people's ideas get nearer to that real Right than others."

Professor Lewis went on to say, "If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must be something — some Real Morality — for them to be true about.

That fact that we don’t always act on Real Morality might be an indication of lack of courage or of not seeing what makes us uncomfortable. But on reflection, we all know these are moral failures on our part.

Penn State, the Starry Heavens Above and the Moral Law Within « Commentary Magazine

A "thinking worshiper"

On November 22, 1963 C.S. Lewis died, the news of his death entirely overshadowed by the assassination of President Kennedy that same day. Jared Wilson writes today about "Three Things I've Learned from Lewis." Two of the three:

1. Wonder. My first introduction to Lewis was not the Chronicles of Narnia, actually, but as a child, Out of the Silent Planet. It was completely weird and wonderful. When I got to Narnia shortly thereafter — I was about 8 or so, probably — I consumed each book one after another lustily, like a compendium of Turkish delight. ....

2. Reason. Even Lewis's fiction is chock-full of logic. "Don't they teach that in schools any more?" the Professor says to the Pevensies when they don't believe Lucy's fantastic story. Lewis's faith was full of wonder but was, also, entirely reasonable, and in the 80's when the apologetic industry was dominated by Josh McDowell and burgeoning creation science (Lee Strobel hadn't hit the scene just yet), I was ingesting The Abolition of Man and Mere Christianity. And probably the most influential non-fiction work of his for me is his collection of essays named after "God in the Dock." The article "Myth Became Fact" is one of my all-time favorite short pieces, fiction or non, and offered a complementary weight to one of my favorite lines in Perelandra, which I quote probably way too much in all the stuff I write. (Ransom understood that myth is "gleams of celestial beauty and strength falling on a jungle of filth and imbecility.") Lewis helped me make sense of this polytheistic, pluralistic world. His classic trilemma in Mere Christianity just made sense. His own logic and reason is not airtight of course, but he approached Christianity not just as a worshiper but as a thinking worshiper, and he therefore becomes an invaluable asset for relentlessly scrutinizing young men and women who are sorting out their faith. ....

The Gospel-Driven Church: Three Things I've Learned from Lewis

"Emotion, rhetorical persuasion, and social pressure"

Jonathan Leeman doesn't do altar calls and explains why not and what he does instead:

...[W]hy wouldn't I give an altar call? In short, I believe that this particular man-made practice, this 19th-century innovation, has produced more bad than good for Christian churches in the West. The altar call relies on the powers of emotion, rhetorical persuasion, and social pressure to induce people to make a hasty and premature decision. And producing professions is not the same thing as making disciples. Surely a number of factors are responsible for the many nominal Christians that typify Christianity in the West, but I believe that the altar call is one of them. ....

The alternative to giving altar calls is sticking with the practices we see modeled in Scripture:

• Invite people throughout your sermon to "repent and be baptized" like Peter did in Jerusalem (Acts 2:38). But when you do, don't just stand there waiting with emotionally charged music playing, staring them down until they relent. Rather, make several suggestions about how and where to discuss the matter further.
• Ask people what they believe when they present themselves for baptism, just like Jesus made sure the disciples knew who he was (Matt. 16:13-17; also, 1 John 4:1-3).
• Make sure they understand what following Jesus entails (Matt. 16:24f; John 6:53-60).
• Explain that the fruit of their lives and persevering to the end will indicate whether or not they really believe (Matt. 7:24f; 10:22).
• You might even explain that Jesus has commanded your church to remove them from its fellowship if their life moving forward does not match their profession (Matt. 18:15-17).

Yes, let's pray hard for conversions. But then let's do everything that Scripture requires of us in the long work of making disciples---a work that generally requires lots of teaching, lots of time, lots of invitations, lots of meals together, and finally the commitment of an entire church body.

You Asked: Should Churches Perform Altar Calls? – The Gospel Coalition Blog

Defending — not apologizing for — the faith once given

C Michael Patton explains why, even given C.S. Lewis's departures from what is considered normative evangelical theology, we are inclined to approve of him but not Rob Bell:

.... Here comes the question I got Tuesday night a the Credo House “Coffee and Theology” study: “So why do we love C.S. Lewis but hate Rob Bell?”

This is the great question I hope to answer briefly.

First of all, no one hates Rob Bell (or at least, no one should). But, speaking for myself, I am very comfortable handing out C.S. Lewis books by the dozens, while I don’t keep a stock of Bell’s books on hand. There is not a book that Lewis wrote that I don’t encourage people to read and grow from. Even A Grief Observed, where Lewis attempts to retain his faith in God while questioning everything in the middle of a crucible of doubt and pain, is one of my favorite books to give to people who are hurting. But I doubt I would ever recommend one of Bell’s works to establish someone in the faith. In fact, I might only recommend them for people to see “the other side.” Let me put it this way (and I must be very careful here): While I fully embrace and endorse the ministry of C.S. Lewis, I do not endorse or embrace the ministry of Rob Bell.

You see, while C.S. Lewis has a great deal of theological foibles, his ministry is defined by a defense of the essence of the Gospel. The essence of who Christ is and what he did are ardently defended by Lewis, saturating every page of his books. His purpose was clear: to defend the reality of God and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. All other things set aside, this is what you leave with every time you read Lewis. The problematic areas are peripheral, not central. One has to look hard to find the departures from traditional Protestant Christianity. They are not the subjects of his works and do not form the titles of his books.

However, with Rob Bell, the essence of who Christ is and what he did seems to be secondary. .... (more)

Why Do We Love C.S. Lewis and Hate Rob Bell? | Parchment and Pen

Climate does change

In about 2005 the advocates of a radical response to "global warming" apparently decided that talking about "climate change" would be more persuasive. In the current print edition of The Weekly Standard, Joseph Bottum and William Anderson explain why.

.... There’s a simple epistemological process by which, as we move up the genus-species tree, we arrive at ideas that cover more cases but convey less information: Lots more mammals exist in general than marmosets in particular, but mammal doesn’t tell us as much about the beast in question as marmoset does. Move up high enough into the linguistic arbor, and you arrive at terms that refer to all but mean none: thing, for example, or being.

Or climate change, as far as that goes. The great emotional gain of the shift from global warming to climate change was that the name had become so generic that nothing imaginable could prove it wrong. Every shift in weather is a confirming instance. The only problem left was the pesky little scientific one that, well, nothing imaginable could prove it wrong. In its public use, in the mouths of activists and the titles of organizations such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the phrase had come to describe something non-falsifiable. ....

.... In politics, the notion that climate change can’t be falsified — everything only serves to confirm it, nothing imaginable can contradict it — has been a marvelous boon. In science, the fact that climate change can’t be falsified seems to prove, mostly, that climate change isn’t science: There’s no way to test for it, no way to quantify it, and no way to demonstrate it. ....

.... Perhaps the greatest reason for any of us to feel skepticism about climate change, however, is the unchanging politics of those who employed it to advance their agendas. Are we wrong to suspect that most global warming activists are merely using global warming as the latest in a long series of tools with which to demand fundamental changes in Western civilization?

Think of it this way: The premise of catastrophe produces the conclusion that the political and economic underpinnings of Western civilization must be discarded. Governments must take control of economies. Capitalism must give way. All decisions must be made by our scientific and political elite, for only they can save us from doom.

Now, in a purely logical world, the rejection of the premise would mean that we don’t have to accept the conclusion. If A, then B and not A together produce nothing. But the people who’ve been lecturing us for more than a decade now about global warming and climate change didn’t start by holding A. They began by holding B — the conclusion, the proposition that Western civilization must change. And it is, literally, a non-falsifiable proposition: If global warming and climate change help lead to it, then hurray for global warming and climate change. If not, well, then, they’ll find something else. ....

Joseph Bottum and William Anderson, "Unchanging Science: Among other things the global warming crusaders got wrong: skepticism is a virtue, not a vice," The Weekly Standard, November 28, 2011, pp. 26-29.

Cheerful plagiarism

It would appear that one of my favorite books was largely plagiarized and, moreover, the plagiarist, Robert Louis Stevenson, admitted it. John Sutherland, who has edited a new edition of Treasure Island argues though, that Stevenson did not identify the author from whom he borrowed the most. The admitted sources:

Stevenson insists that, as originally conceived, the story was designed solely for his domestic audience. If so it would explain his cheerful plundering of so many other writers’ material in Treasure Island’s early chapters. “Plagiarism”, he candidly confides in “My First Book”, “was rarely carried farther.” The opening (Billy Bones’s arrival at the Admiral Benbow inn) was lifted, Stevenson confides, from Washington’s Irving’s Wolfert Webber. The juvenile hero (Jim Hawkins) is a conscious nod towards W.H.G. Kingston’s Peter the Whaler. The desert island – and its marooned inhabitant, Ben Gunn – is borrowed from “brave Ballantyne” and The Coral Island. The buried treasure and the map were taken (again) from Washington Irving’s Tales of a Traveller. Silver’s parrot is taken from Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. The siege at the stockade on Treasure Island is, Stevenson acknowledges, a loan from Captain Marryat’s Masterman Ready. The grisly skeleton signpost, and coded instructions, to where the treasure is buried are taken from Poe’s “The Gold Bug”. Stevenson is engagingly frank about these borrowings. ....

Stevenson’s other island | TLS

"Scum of the earth"

From National Geographic's contribution to the celebration of the King James Version of the Bible:

.... Most of us might think we have forgotten its words, but the King James Bible has sewn itself into the fabric of the language. If a child is ever the apple of her parents' eye or an idea seems as old as the hills, if we are at death's door or at our wits' end, if we have gone through a baptism of fire or are about to bite the dust, if it seems at times that the blind are leading the blind or we are casting pearls before swine, if you are either buttering someone up or casting the first stone, the King James Bible, whether we know it or not, is speaking through us. The haves and have-nots, heads on plates, thieves in the night, scum of the earth, best until last, sackcloth and ashes, streets paved in gold, and the skin of one's teeth: All of them have been transmitted to us by the translators who did their magnificent work 400 years ago. ....

John Hall, the Dean of Westminster, on why he has resumed reading the KJV:

"There are moments," he says, "which move me almost to tears. I love the story, after Jesus has been crucified and has risen, and he appears to the disciples as they are walking on the road to Emmaus. They don't know who he is, but they talk together, and at the end they say to him, 'Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.' That is a phrase—so simple, so direct, and so powerful—which has meant an enormous amount to me over the years. The language is full of mystery and grace, but it is also a version of loving authority, and that is the great message of this book." .... [more]

King James Bible - Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine

Reading books on a screen

Google Books is a project of Google involving the scanning of entire libraries of books and then making them available online. It is extraordinary, making available rare sources, some so rare that only one or two copies are known to exist. A new version of the GooReader is available today at CNET:

.... GooReader turned out to be a pretty nice free e-book reader for Google Books. As you know, Google is into everything, including e-books, and in a big way. It offers quick access to millions of titles, many of them free, and helps you manage your e-book purchases. Its animated 3D graphics give the e-books a realistic appearance.

You'll need to sign in to your Google Account to access Google Books and manage your Library. .... [more]

It will do searches, download pdfs, manage the library on your computer and function as an attractive interface for reading. I searched for "Seventh Day Baptist" this afternoon and within seconds the results included several hard-to-find books [several of them scanned at the New York Public Library]. GooReader can also be downloaded here.

My Kindle comes tomorrow. I have resisted electronic books up to now. We'll see....

GooReader - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

Avoiding responsibility

In a very good column, "Let’s All Feel Superior," prompted by many of the responses to the Penn State crimes, David Brooks wonders whether most of us would have done any better.

.... People are really good at self-deception. We attend to the facts we like and suppress the ones we don’t. We inflate our own virtues and predict we will behave more nobly than we actually do. As Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel write in their book, “Blind Spots,” “When it comes time to make a decision, our thoughts are dominated by thoughts of how we want to behave; thoughts of how we should behave disappear.”

In centuries past, people built moral systems that acknowledged this weakness. These systems emphasized our sinfulness. They reminded people of the evil within themselves. Life was seen as an inner struggle against the selfish forces inside. These vocabularies made people aware of how their weaknesses manifested themselves and how to exercise discipline over them. These systems gave people categories with which to process savagery and scripts to follow when they confronted it. They helped people make moral judgments and hold people responsible amidst our frailties.

But we’re not Puritans anymore. We live in a society oriented around our inner wonderfulness. So when something atrocious happens, people look for some artificial, outside force that must have caused it — like the culture of college football, or some other favorite bogey. People look for laws that can be changed so it never happens again.

Commentators ruthlessly vilify all involved from the island of their own innocence. Everyone gets to proudly ask: “How could they have let this happen?”

The proper question is: How can we ourselves overcome our natural tendency to evade and self-deceive. ....

Let’s All Feel Superior - NYTimes.com

This day...

Via The Christian Post, John Stott's Daily Prayer:

Heavenly Father, I pray that I may live this day in your presence and please you more and more.

Lord Jesus, I pray that this day I may take up my cross and follow you.

Holy Spirit, I pray that this day you will fill me with yourself and cause your fruit to ripen in my life: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control.

Holy, blessed and glorious trinity, three persons in one God, have mercy upon me.

Almighty God, Creator and sustainer of the universe, I worship you.

Lord Jesus Christ, Savior and Lord of the World, I worship you.

Holy Spirit, Sanctifier of the people of God, I worship you.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,

As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be forever, Amen.

John Stott's Daily Prayer, Christian News

Feeling good rather than doing good

Feeling good about what you are doing is no substitute for actually doing good. In "Wasted Charity," Amy Sherman reviews Toxic Charity: How Churches Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) by Robert D. Lupton:

.... We evaluate our giving, Lupton argues, "by the rewards we receive through service, rather than the benefits received by the served."

Short-term mission trips are a case in point. Such "junkets" involve expenditures of between $2.5-5 billion annually, yet produce little lasting change, often displace local labor, and distract indigenous church leaders from more important work. We get more than we give when we go.

Meanwhile, our relief-oriented, commodity-based charity flourishes at home because even though its effects are irresponsible, it feels good to the givers. Lupton grieves that "our free food and clothing distribution encourages ever-growing handout lines, diminishing the dignity of the poor while increasing their dependency."

Lupton does offer some ideas for improvement. He proposes a new "Oath for Compassionate Service" for the charity industry to adopt, much as the medical community has adopted the Hippocratic Oath. Lupton's Oath offers six key guidelines: (1) Never do for the poor what they can do for themselves; (2) Limit one-way giving to emergencies; (3) Empower the poor through employment, lending, and investing, using grants sparingly to reinforce achievements; (4) Subordinate self-interest to the needs of those being served; (5) Listen closely to those you seek to help; (6) Above all, do no harm. .... [more]

Wasted Charity | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Created equal?

David Brooks explains when it's socially acceptable for Americans to express superiority over others:

.... Academic inequality is socially acceptable. It is perfectly fine to demonstrate that you are in the academic top 1 percent by wearing a Princeton, Harvard or Stanford sweatshirt.

Ancestor inequality is not socially acceptable. It is not permissible to go around bragging that your family came over on the Mayflower and that you are descended from generations of Throgmorton-Winthrops who bequeathed a legacy of good breeding and fine manners.

Fitness inequality is acceptable. It is perfectly fine to wear tight workout sweats to show the world that pilates have given you buns of steel. These sorts of displays are welcomed as evidence of your commendable self-discipline and reproductive merit.

Moral fitness inequality is unacceptable. It is out of bounds to boast of your superior chastity, integrity, honor or honesty. Instead, one must respect the fact that we are all morally equal, though our behavior and ethical tastes may differ.

Sports inequality is acceptable. It is normal to wear a Yankees jersey, an L.S.U. T-shirt or the emblem of any big budget team. The fact that your favorite sports franchise regularly grounds opponents into dust is a signal of your overall prowess.

Church inequality is unacceptable. It would be uncouth to wear a Baptist or Catholic or Jewish jersey to signal that people of your faith are closer to God. It is wrong to look down on other faiths on the grounds that their creeds are erroneous. ....

Status inequality is acceptable for college teachers. Universities exist within a finely gradated status structure, with certain schools like Brown clearly more elite than other schools. University departments are carefully ranked and compete for superiority.

Status inequality is unacceptable for high school teachers. Teachers at this level strongly resist being ranked. It would be loathsome to have one’s department competing with other departments in nearby schools. .... [more]

The Inequality Map - NYTimes.com

November 11, 1918

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. Laurence Binyon, 1914

 First World War.com - Prose & Poetry - Laurence Binyon

Child abuse and the church

Albert Mohler, writing about the appalling Penn State scandal, draws the appropriate lesson for churches:

.... What about churches, Christian institutions, and Christian schools? The Penn State disaster must serve as a warning to us as well, for we bear an even higher moral responsibility.

The moral and legal responsibility of every Christian — and especially every Christian leader and minister — must be to report any suspicion of the abuse of a child to law enforcement authorities. Christians are sometimes reluctant to do this, but this reluctance is both deadly and wrong.

Sometimes Christians are reluctant to report suspected sexual abuse because they do not feel that they know enough about the situation. They are afraid of making a false accusation. This is the wrong instinct. We do not have the ability to conduct the kind of investigation that is needed, nor is this assigned to the church. This is the function of government as instituted by God (Romans 13). Waiting for further information allows a predator to continue and puts children at risk. This is itself an immoral act that needs to be seen for what it is.

A Christian hearing a report of sexual abuse within a church, Christian organization, or Christian school, needs to act in exactly the same manner called for if the abuse is reported in any other context. The church and Christian organizations must not become safe places for abusers. These must be safe places for children, and for all. Any report of sexual abuse must lead immediately to action. That action cannot fall short of contacting law enforcement authorities. A clear lesson of the Penn State scandal is this: Internal reporting is simply not enough. .... [more]

Baptists particularly need to have very clear standards in this respect since our congregational polity provides no supervising authority.

GetReligion also provides good information in "False idols at Penn State and elsewhere"

AlbertMohler.com – The Tragic Lessons of Penn State — A Call to Action

Taking offense

The governor of the state in which I live has broken a twenty-five year practice by calling the tree placed annually in the rotunda of our state capitol (in December for some reason) a "Christmas" tree. Outrage ensues:

We can always count on Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Madison-based "Freedom From Religion Foundation" to point out how horribly offensive and insensitive this is:

"The reason that it was turned into a holiday tree was to avoid this connotation that the governor chooses one religion over another," she said. "It's essentially a discourtesy by the governor to announce that. He intends that to be a slight and a snub to non-Christians, otherwise he would not do it."

For their part, the Freedom From Religion Foundation has never been all that concerned about offending people. Every year, their contribution to the annual Christmas display in the Capitol Rotunda is a sign that reads: "At this season of THE WINTER SOLSTICE may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."

First Shot Fired in this Year's "War on Christmas" - Ricochet.com, Walker says it's a Christmas, not holiday, tree - JSOnline

Behaving badly

The New York Times reports that there is "Widespread Sexual Harassment in Grades 7 to 12." Walter Russell Mead wonders what we would do without such studies:

Teenage boys behaving badly? Via Meadia is indescribably shocked.  But this study may only be scratching the surface.  We also hear distressing rumors that “cool” kids make fun of and belittle others.  “Jocks”, we hear, often mock the lack of athletic prowess of those they unkindly label as “nerds” and “geeks”.  In some schools, there are reports that young people with severe cases of acne are the subject of pitiless mirth.  Middle school, it is rumored, is a particularly vicious social snake pit where cliques of young girls do everything in their power to shame and isolate others who do not meet their standards for appearance and behavior.

Via Meadia is grateful to be living in an age of social science when adults with advanced degrees can give these vital issues the deep attention and scrutiny they deserve. More studies, please, not to mention more polls, more detailed and intrusive regulations, and more sensitivity training. More attention must be paid and more money spent. Immediately.

I've taught in both middle schools and high schools. We don't need studies to tell us that kids in the early teens are probably as uninhibited and as cruel as they will ever be for the rest of their lives. It is, of course, the responsiblity of the adult in the room or the hallway to both teach and enforce civility.

Widespread Sexual Harassment in Grades 7 to 12 Found in Study - NYTimes.com, Shock Poll Reveals: Some Teens Are Mean To Their Peers | Via Meadia

A tame God

Via The Inklings:

When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest. If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children. The Life Force is a sort of tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen?

C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity

The Inklings: A tame sort of God?

"Sometimes escapist but never small-minded"

In a review of a new collection of the letters of PG Wodehouse we are given a fascinating biographical account and a description of what makes him so attractive to those of us who enjoy his books:

.... Countless readers of Wodehouse have testified to the way his novels have their own "stimulating effect" on morale, providing not just comic, but almost medicinal effects: the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm, after his defeat in the first world war, consoled himself by reading Wodehouse to his "mystified" staff; the late Queen Mother allegedly read "The Master" on a nightly basis, to set aside the "strains of the day"; more recently, news reports tell of the imprisoned Burmese comedian Zargana finding comfort in Wodehouse during solitary confinement. "Books are my best friends", he confided. "I liked the PG Wodehouse best. Joy in the Morning – Jeeves, Wooster and the fearsome Aunt Agatha. It's difficult to understand, but I've read it three times at least. And I used it as a pillow too." ....

.... In an open letter to some admirers, he admits that his fiction was never intended to fit the criteria of "relevance": "The world I write about, always a small one – one of the smallest I ever met, as Bertie Wooster would say – is now not even small, it is nonexistent. It has gone with the wind and is one with Nineveh and Tyre. In a word, it has had it. But I have not altogether lost hope of a revival."

The beauty of this sentence is that it enacts what it says. In a superlative run of clichés – "gone with the wind", "one with Nineveh", "in a word" – Wodehouse revels in, and revives, the contained sphere of an exhausted language (a "small world" of its own) and makes it a little larger. So it is with the worlds of his fiction. Almost lyric in their perfection, sometimes escapist, but never small-minded, they offer what Adorno called "the dream of a world where things could be otherwise". Right until the end, Wodehouse wrote to preserve the world of innocence he never quite grew out of – and to resist a world he never quite grew into.... (more)

Two interesting earlier posts about Wodehouse:

• PG Wodehouse and Christian readers
• One Eternal Day: "The funniest writer ever to have put words on paper"

PG Wodehouse: a life in letters