Joel Belz's View of the Election

Joel Belz has written a thought-provoking article on the upcoming election. It is an article that may make you re-think your priorities and think twice about this whole idea of Christian education and its cost. If you have been reading this blog for a while you already know what I think of Christian education and its importance. Mr. Belz writes on his thoughts of past Christian priorities in the following passage:

"While strenuously wrestling over business and banking and health care and energy and a dozen other issues, we [Christians] cavalierly handed over to the state a perpetual 90 percent share of the nation's educational interests. America regularly has about 50 million children enrolled in K-12 schools, and about 20 million more in colleges and universities—and while the pattern fluctuates a little, 90 percent of those 70 million young people regularly get a state-flavored view of reality. "

"Socialized medicine? Most of us recoil at the idea. Socialized airlines? Reminds us of Aeroflot. Socialized banks? When it happened last month, it terrified us.
But socialized schools? Nine out of ten of us patronize them regularly.
And we do so with na'ry a thought or concern about how such an arrangement affects next week's election, or the election after that, or the lifetime of elections to come. "

Belz goes on to remind us of some important things regarding Christian education.

"The bells of freedom on every front traditionally ring more clearly where a biblical value system has been inculcated. No one should expect anything resembling such a result from secularist state-sponsored schools, which will naturally glorify the state. No one should be surprised when that's what happens. "

Do not be fooled; education is enculturing and indoctrinating. The only question is which worldview do you want encultured and indoctrinated into your child. The choice you make, as a Christian, may matter...30 years from now in another election. Blessings!

Bailout to the Rescue, Maybe...

Dr. Mark T. Mitchell wrote an interesting article on the recent government bailout. He writes what most of us think, case and point:

"In the days leading up to the passage of the final package, politicians from both parties grimly warned that what was at stake was "our American way of life" and without massive intervention the country and perhaps the world was heading toward an "economic apocalypse." I must admit that I am skeptical when powerful folks ask for more power. I'm even more skeptical when they do so using fear as a motivation. When the putative choice is massive government intervention or world-wide disaster, we do well to ask how we got into such a conundrum."

Dr. Mitchell writes of ten important questions regarding the bailout. They are questions that should be on your mind if they are not already. His article, Ten Questions and a Modest Proposal, present the ten questions in all their glory. They will cause you to think, and, hopefully, remember that a Holy God is in complete control. Blessings!

Economics Made Easy by Dr. George Grant

Dr. George Grant provided the economic lesson below on his blog. Enjoy!

Economics, commonly known as the "dismal science," can actually be easily understood. Here are each of the basic economic philosophies explained in simple "two-cow" terms (first articulated years ago during a delightful dinner in Washington DC with Murray Rothbard):

Communalism: You have two cows. You keep one and give one to your neighbor.


Communism: You have two cows. The government takes them both and--from time to time--provides you with sour milk.


Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes them and sells you the milk.


Liberalism: You have two cows. The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, and then pours it down the drain.


Socialism: You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point that you must sell them both in order to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow which was a gift from your government.


Free-Market Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.Centralized, Multi-National-Corporation-Based, Government-Subsidized,


Democratic Socialism: You have two cows. You sell one, force the other to produce the milk of four cows and when it dies you write off the depreciation, hire a lobbyist, and garner a government bail-out and tax-breaks in order to purchase two new cows. Repeat.

Paulo Freire and the Pedagogy of the Oppressed

When I was engaged in Ph.D study a few years back one of the authors I read was Paulo Freire. Freire and his works where immensely popular in higher education and still are. Here are two examples of what you will find on various websites about him.

“Paulo Freire (1921 - 1997), the Brazilian educationalist, has left a significant mark on thinking about progressive practice. His Pedagogy of the Oppressed is currently one of the most quoted educational texts (especially in Latin America, Africa and Asia). Freire was able to draw upon, and weave together, a number of strands of thinking about educational practice and liberation.”

“Perhaps the most influential thinker about education in the late twentieth century, Paulo Freire has been particularly popular with informal educators with his emphasis on dialogue and his concern for the oppressed.”

Freire did contribute to the educational conversation in some positive ways. But, like most honest and sincere researchers, the concepts he stumbled upon can be traced right back to the truth of the scriptures. Case and point:

In his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire suggests that every person can look critically at his world through a process of dialogue and can gradually come to understand the world through his or her individual actions. We, inside Christian circles, call this a worldview and understand its importance.

Freire suggests that education is an either/or; either it is the conditioning of the younger generation to accept things as they are, or it is the practice of freedom which prepares the younger generation to deal critically and creatively with their worlds and realities. I say it is both. You must first prepare a foundation upon which to think; then, and only then, will you be able to thing critically and creatively about your world and truly understand your reality.

These ideas, among others, form the foundation of Freire’s promotion of literacy as an agent of social change, and I believe it can be. Many of Freire’s ideas are revolutionary and political and fly against many of the customary American beliefs. Some of these American beliefs include ideas such as “banking education,” where the teacher teaches and students are taught (as opposed to Freire’s idea that both teacher and student bring something different and equally worthwhile to the class, understanding that knowledge should be shared and both sides and ideas should be given equal respect). Other American educational ideas like the teacher knows everything and that the students know nothing, the idea that only what the teacher teaches is correct, and that the teacher chooses what to teach and the students adapt…all where considered destructive and harmful to the educational process by Freire. While I do acknowledge that both teacher and student bring something to the classroom, I must also acknowledge that the teacher brings more than the student because of age, degree, and maturity, and, therefore, is qualified to be the authority in the room and choose what is taught. Students are made to be inside order and structure and are not meant to have equal status with adults early in the learning process.

Freire was also very interested in the process of naming and believed that the action of naming directs social action.

“Human existence cannot be silent, nor can it be nourished by false words… To exist, humanly, is to name the world, to change it. Once named, the world in turn reappears to the namers as a problem and requires of them a new naming. Men are not built in silence, but in word, in work, in action-reflection.”

Freire would not understand the cultural mandate found in Genesis 1, even though, by his research, he pretty much supported it in the statements above.

My point is this: those who are passionately interested in elements of the world, who pursue, through hard honest labor, the means to make those elements better, often stumble onto the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.” May all who read here discover that Truth! Blessings!

Egalitarianism

Sadly, this cartoon, more often than not, represents the current mindset in today's America. The spirit of laborious intensity or hard work is quickly evaporating. And, it is this spirit, in conjunction with the spirit of egalitarianism, that could decide upcoming elections. Egalitarianism is the spirit that insists on everybody being equal. Candidates right and left make promise after promise designed to mollify the egos of laziness and egalitarianism.

As Believers in Christ, we should not succumb to these spirits for our calling is of a different persuasion. Dr. Michael Horton writes that the spirit currently is permeating society is anti-intellectualism. He writes in his article, Sloth, that "anti-intellectualism is not humble. It is humble to say, "I don't know, but I'll have to look into that." But it's pride that leads us to say, "I don't know and that's OK." It's arrogant, first, because it makes oneself the center of the universe."

He goes on to point out that "anti-intellectualism makes egalitarianism possible by leveling the playing field. While in past ages, consulting wise elders and the books of the great thinkers was considered an act of humility, in our day it is considered elitist. In such a time, the church should be standing apart from such worldly arrogance, but instead she is often found at the helm of this ship of fools."

Anti-intellectualism is the product of laziness and egalitarianism, producing nothing more than mediocrity, at its very best. At worst, it produces immorality, heresy and stupidity. Our nature, without Christ, is to want everything for free, but how free is that? How free will we be when we are totally dependent on someone else for everything? We are only truly free when we can labor intensely to produce fruits from our own labor. And, when we labor in this way we rise above mediocrity to morality and wisdom.

Dr. Horton provides a perfect completion to this thought.

"So let's stop being lazy. Instead of settling for too little--the trivial things that we call "practical" and "relevant," let us "fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith," making every effort to study the Scriptures, gathering the kindling of truth from its sacred pages, and then let us fan the flame until its brilliant glow can be seen from distant places by the homeless souls seeking warmth and light on a cold winter's night."

Blessings!

The Great Quotes Collection

Here are few great quotes from Sir Winston Churchill!


"The price of greatness is responsibility."


"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things."


"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."



Think deeply about them! Blessings!

The Prevailing Wind of Education

Dr. Wilfred McClay has some thoughts on the current prevailing wind in today's education in the Dartmouth Apologia, a journal of Christian thought at Dartmouth College.

"There is a philosophy of education embedded in those words from Philippians [4:8]. And it’s very much at odds with the prevailing approach of many parents, educators, writers, producers, media providers, and kids. The prevailing view is that no one can really know for sure what is true, pure, and just—that such judgments are strictly individual in nature, and that it therefore would be an arrogant imposition of one’s values or tastes to assume otherwise. Therefore the only really fair and honest way to educate young people is to “expose” them to many things, as many things as possible, respect their “feelings,” and leave it to them to sort it all out."

"It is an approach to education that appears on the surface to be generous and liberatory, but is in fact far from being either. For it is an approach whose liberality is really only a veil for its lack of conviction, and for its indifference to the fate of the very ones consigned to its care. Not indifference to their physical fates, of which we are now perhaps excessively solicitous, with our growing mania for physical health and safety. But indifference to their intellectual and spiritual fates, about which an attitude of neutrality is in fact an attitude of abdication."

Dr. McClay's article is well worth the time it will take you to read it. As a matter of fact, if you read Dr. McClay's article, you will take the first step in following the advice found there. Blessings!

The Current Financial Mess

The current financial mess is some one's fault, right? Well, let's consider, first, that the ramifications are now being felt world-wide. As Asian and European markets begin to drop and become unstable, we all should realize the power of the American market. The first neat answer is yes, many are at fault, but then, the answer gets complex. Let me explain.

First, let me clarify that I am no financial wizard, but I am concerned about what is taking place in the financial industry, and what has taken place in general society, and I believe the two are linked.

All we hear, these days, is this idea that mark-to-market accounting has to be eliminated. Before we eliminate it, I would like to know what it is? I did a little research and share with each of you what I found.

Mark-to-market is an accounting methodology of assigning a value to a position on an instrument based on the current market price for that instrument or similar instruments, well before it matures or expires. There are two problems my simple minds sees: first, what prevents anyone from assigning a higher value than market value especially, if the current market value results in net lost profit?

Second, this practice of mark-to-market has been going on so long, now, that there are bound to be many more, annually, who knowing overestimate ( a nice kind word) their market price in order not to take a loss. How do we police them, and how do we recover after we set parameters? I believe over the years, more loop holes and tricks have been discovered, and eventually, a good percentage of the market was being held up by the proverbial house of cards.

This issue, as I see it, is directly related to this idea that there is no god, and that, for the most part, people are good, and do not need Him. If we can not be trusted with out constraints, discipline and a police force, what makes anyone think we can trust anyone to assign a value to a commodity when the value assigned will directly affect the ability to make or lose money. This practice might have worked in a Christian or even ecumenical society, but in a secular self-centered society it was doomed.

There are current constraints in place however, case and point:

IRS Section 475 contains the mark to market accounting rule. Section 475 states that dealers that "elect mark to market treatment shall recognize gain or loss as if the property were sold for its fair market value on the last business day of the year, and any gain or loss shall be taken into account in that year."

In the end, the cause is not mark-to-market according to Joanna Ossinger of Fox Business. Ossinger states that, "Mark-to-market, which is part of fair-value accounting, simply means that companies assigning values to assets they hold must value them at current market levels. If something is trading right around $10, it’s given a value of $10, regardless of whether it was bought for $2 or $20."

What happens if it is given a value of $20 instead of $10? Who oversees the process to ensure that companies value assets properly?

In the end, the cause is the same...we can not be trusted without the guiding light and indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Join me in praying for this financial crisis... that it will end quickly, and that it will move many to reconsider the meaning of life and put their trust in the Lord Jesus, as He is the only way (Acts 4:12). Blessings!

Hoops in the New Gym

Coach Spybey and I decided to ham it up a bit in our new building today.

Here he tries to defend my first step, but he soon realizes that I am slower than most. I move with a jello-like motion that most turtles would envy.

Coach Spybey, surprised that any man can actually move in slow motion in real time, is stunned and has no answer, as I roll past him, I find...no basket. The gym is not finished yet, but... it is still beautiful just the same.

All is well, as our new building grows daily. As you drive by our new campus at the corner of Oakwood Drive and Johns Road, remember that all that you see is the result of a Holy God working through simple people for His own glory. May God be glorified by our buildings, by our school and most of all, by our entire lives! Blessings!